History Characters / Borderlands2VaultHunters

* BaldWomen: The head you get for buying the limited edition is this.

* BadassBeard: Has a large beard that makes him look even more rough and tumble, though many of his alternate heads change the style or get rid of it altogether.

* OurDwarvesAreDifferent: He's short and stout. He's a BoisterousBruiser who prefers raw force to finesse. He's got a huge nose and a BadassBeard. Despite being a human, he checks off every box except for mining and drinking. If there was any doubt, [[DownloadableContent Tiny Tina's Assault On Dragon Keep]] made all the dwarves look like him with braided beards.

'''Weapon Brands''': [[Characters/BorderlandsDahl Dahl]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHyperion Hyperion]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]]) | [[Characters/BorderlandsMaliwan Maliwan]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsTorgue Torgue]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsWeaponBrands Other Weapon Brands]]\\

'''Other''': [[Characters/BorderlandsBanditsAndBanditFactions Bandits and Bandit Factions]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHodunkAndZafordClans Hodunk and Zaford Clans]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsCreatures Creatures]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsEridiansAndVaultMonsters Eridians and Vault Monsters]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsRaidBosses Raid Bosses]])-]]]]]

'''Individuals and groups''': [[Characters/BorderlandsDahl Dahl]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHyperion Hyperion]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]]) | [[Characters/BorderlandsMaliwan Maliwan]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsTorgue Torgue]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsEridiansAndVaultMonsters Eridians and Vault Monsters]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHodunkAndZafordClans Hodunk and Zaford Clans]]\\
'''Miscellaneous''': [[Characters/BorderlandsWeaponBrands Other Weapon Brands]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsBanditsAndBanditFactions Bandits and Bandit Factions]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsCreatures Creatures]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsRaidBosses Raid Bosses]]-]]]]]

'''Individuals and groups''': [[Characters/BorderlandsDahl Dahl]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHyperion Hyperion]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]]) | [[Characters/BorderlandsTorgue Torgue]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsEridiansAndVaultMonsters Eridians and Vault Monsters]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHodunkAndZafordClans Hodunk and Zaford Clans]]\\

[-'''[[Characters/BorderlandsVaultHunters Playable Characters]]''': ''[[Characters/Borderlands1VaultHunters Borderlands 1]]'' | '''''Borderlands 2''''' ([[Characters/BorderlandsKrieg Krieg]]) ([[Characters/BorderlandsKrieg Krieg]]) | ''[[Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequelVaultHunters The Pre-Sequel]]'' | ''[[Characters/Borderlands3VaultHunters Borderlands 3]]''\\

[-'''[[Characters/BorderlandsVaultHunters Playable Characters]]''': ''[[Characters/Borderlands1VaultHunters Borderlands 1]]'' | '''''Borderlands 2''''' | ''[[Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequelVaultHunters The Pre-Sequel]]'' | ''[[Characters/Borderlands3VaultHunters Borderlands 3]]''\\

[[quoteright:340:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BL2Krieg_3916.jpg]]
[[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click for his [=BL3=] appearance]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/borderlands_3_20200914210916_4.jpg [[/labelnote]]]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JasonDouglas

->''(Say "thank you".) '''"NIPPLE SALADS!"''' (Close enough.)''

The product of horrifying experimentation at the hands of Hyperion, Krieg was once a heroic Vault Hunter. While the process did make him stronger, it also drove him almost completely insane, with the last remnants of his former self acting as a conscience to him. Encountering Maya as she waited for a train, he fell in love with her and became a Vault Hunter alongside her in hopes that she will be the one to make him sane once more. His Action Skill has him go on a rampage with his buzz axe, regaining health for every kill, and his secondary mechanic is Bloodlust stacks, which are awarded while dealing damage and lost when damage is not being dealt. Unlike the rest of the Vault Hunters, Krieg relies on melee attacks, and his skill trees are oriented towards increasing his survivability to compensate his lack of attack range ('''Mania'''), making his Bloodlust stacks more useful ('''Bloodlust'''), and [[IncendiaryExponent setting enemies and himself on fire]] ('''Hellborn''').

* AbusiveParents: A sidequest in "Fantastic Fustercluck" implies that he had a rough upbringing with a mother who constantly called him weak and whose idea of making him "strong" was force-feeding him milk with a gun, though how much of that is just Krieg's own distorted imagination is left up in air.
* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: During his stint in the ECHO Casts twitter account, he tends to capitalize random letters such as "[=NIPpLE SaLAds=]" and "[=YoU WANNA know wHo I AM I will SHOW YoU WHo I AM=]", mimicking this trope's format.
* ADayInTheLimelight:
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3mhWvWEb9g A Meat Bicycle Built for Two]]'', a short film made by Gearbox that shows how Krieg became a Vault Hunter and to make up for his own lack of ECHO logs.
** He's the central figure of the fourth DLC of ''Borderlands 3'', "Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck".
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal:
** [[ShownTheirWork In psychology, alliteration without logical association is often indicative of clanging, a symptom of schizophrenia]]. Or he's seen ''Film/VForVendetta'' at some point. Unsurprisingly, Krieg is quite fond of this:
--> "Pitiful people prepare, plead plentifully plentiful platitude phenomenal patriot pounds, poundingly perverse puppets; pulping, pleasantly, putrid pasties."
** All of the skill names in the Hellborn skill tree. (Burn Baby Burn, Fuel the Fire, Pain is Power, etc.)
* AdultFear: When he befriended Maya, he made their relationship his only support system for his mental illness. [[spoiler:After she dies in ''3'', Krieg starts having a relapse and begins to fear losing his memories of her]].
* AffectionateNickname: Based from related ECHO Logs in ''3'', both Tina and Maya had been referring to Krieg as "big guy".
* AmbiguousDisorder: Amongst his other issues, he's stated to have multiple personalities, but its written more akin to severe aphasia. ''3'' heavily leans towards the multiple personalities interpretation, however.
* AmnesiacHero: Inner Krieg doesn't remember anything from his past, and [[AxCrazy outer Krieg]] [[EvilFeelsGood doesn't want to]]. By the end of ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' [[spoiler:he never fully regains his memories of who he was, but he accepts it and chooses to build a new future. It's also revealed earlier on that it is less that Psycho Krieg doesn't want to, and more that he knows the memories have completely disappeared from their mind, which he actually sounds saddened by when it is finally revealed to Sane Krieg]].
* AnAxeToGrind: He wields a larger version of the [[ChainsawGood buzz axe]] that Dr. Zed or the Badass Psychos use. The Buzz Axe Bombardier attaches dynamite to it, letting Krieg deal explosive damage whenever he throws it. His class mods take the form of different blades for it.
* AndIMustScream: He used to be a much saner, smarter, more moral sort, possibly a Vault Hunting bounty hunter. Now? Thanks to Hyperion experimentation, he's a mass-murdering (of Hyperion and "the deserving") Badass Psycho with all the insanity and AxCrazy-ness that implies. And his original personality is a SplitPersonality stuck inside this lunatic, completely aware of everything he does and nearly unable to affect it in any way.
* {{Angrish}}: Especially when Rampaging.
* AreYouPonderingWhatImPondering: Although Krieg's dialect is nonsensical, people do start understanding him over time. As Maya was able to understand what he was saying after spending time with him. This is also something the [=DLC=] draws attention to; due to people misunderstanding him, Krieg believes people see him as stupid and embarrassing. When in reality, people liked him and were happy to see him happy.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
** Krieg's "I WANNA BE WANTED" head has him wearing a Wanted poster of himself over his face, with a charge written at the bottom for "Indecent Exposure".
* AttackAttackAttack: The basis of the Bloodlust skill tree. Dealing damage adds stacks of Bloodlust, which decreases if no damage is being dealt. As such, it is best for him to always be on the offensive and shooting at something.
** Generally speaking, Kriegs entire playstyle demands the player to be in the thick of battle to make full use of his skills. Bloodlust stacks decay when he's not doing damage to something, so Krieg must always have a target in his sights to enjoy the gargantuan weapon buffs it provides. The Mania tree encourages Krieg to always be receiving damage to get his Action Skill charged up more often, while also maintaining a close distance to the enemy lest he be shot down before he can get close enough to cut them down. Hellborn is similar to Bloodlust in that he must always have a target in his crosshairs being burnt alive to enjoy the buffs that self-immolation brings.
* TheAtoner: The sane part of Krieg is trying to redeem himself. The other part really couldn't care less.
* AwesomeButImpractical: Two major examples, both from the "Mania" tree:
** Silence the Voices gives you a HUGE melee damage boost (easily reaching over 300% with a class mod) but causes you to have a 12% chance to hit yourself. On paper this doesn't seem major, but in practice you're hitting yourself every one in ten swings (more if you're unlucky) and dealing that huge melee damage to yourself. If you're not healthy enough you'll end up [=KOing=] yourself. Additionally, if you were close enough to hit the enemy, they're close enough to hit you, meaning that missed swing gives them an opportunity to hit back, hard. On the other hand though, hitting yourself with full HP (which isn't a particularly hard thing to do with Krieg) while in battle can help you activate ''Release the Beast'', which instantly heals him completely and grants him a massive damage buff while he's rampaging. In situations where for some reason you don't or cannot get ''Release the Beast'', then the chance to hit yourself becomes somewhat a liability due the aforementioned reasons.
** "Light the Fuses" causes Krieg to run around when his health is depleted, throwing bundles of dynamite. Excellent for getting a second wind against bandits and other ground troops, but against airborne enemies you'll wish you had a regular "Fight for Your Life" (which this skill will always override).
* AxCrazy: 'Murderous insanity' is the entire job description of a Pandoran psycho and is Krieg's main forte. His action skill literally involves him going crazy with an axe.
* BadassBoast: In a lot of his AxCrazy dialogue lines such as:
-->''MY PECS HAVE PECS!''\\
(Seeing a Badass enemy) "I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT A BADASS IS!"\\
"I'M GONNA PUT MY '''''PAIN''''' INTO '''''YOUR SOUL'''''!"\\
I LOOKED INTO THE HEART OF DARKNESS, '''''AND I ATE IT ALL!!!'''''
* BaldOfAwesome: His default head.
* BattleCouple: An odd case with Maya. She might not be aware of his feelings for her, but he clearly is attracted to her. In effect, they make the absolute best example of SwordAndSorcerer[=/=]GuysSmashGirlsShoot in the entire game's multiplayer portion. Maya is able to crowd control enemies and allow Krieg to utterly obliterate them in melee, as well as Maya being able to heal Krieg in combat.
* BeastAndBeauty: With Maya. He became a Vault Hunter because he fell in love with her and wanted to protect her.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: In "Fantastic Flustercluck", the Sane half of Krieg recognizes that the [=BL1=] Vault Hunters accepted him in spite of him being a Psycho and wants nothing more than to express his gratefulness. Fortunately, they're perfectly fine with him screaming nonsense.
* TheBerserker: Given what he is, this is a given as his Action Skill encourages him to resort to his axe, throwing it or getting up close to the enemy. Two skills further emphasize this trope:
** The Mania tree in particular focuses on fighting as suicidally as possible, doing stuff like deliberately putting yourself in harm's way to recharge your specials or running around with a lit bundle of dynamite.
** The Bloodlust tree, on the other hand, gives him stacks of "Bloodlust" that accumulate quickly as he damages enemies (but also disappear rapidly if he's not damaging enemies) so to get the most out of its skills, it also forces you to run straight into combat blowing away as many enemies as possible as quickly as possible.
** With the two aforementioned skill trees combined, he becomes the living embodiment of this trope.
* TheBigGuy: Class 3, easily being the loudest and most bloodthirsty Psycho on Pandora, and that is really saying something. Class 1 as well, as he's the tallest and most solidly built of the new Vault Hunters, and can get even bigger with Release the Beast.
* BloodKnight: Even under normal circumstances he's incredibly bloodthirsty, but during Buzz Axe Rampage it reaches [[UpToEleven new extremes]].
-->"GRIND GRIND GRIND KILL KILL KILL!"\\
"YESYESYESYESYES!"\\
"BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOOOD, BLOOD, BLOOOOOOOD!"
* BodyHorror: He was an experiment of some sort, and still has numerous scars, stitches, and various hoses all over his body. He can also mutate himself into a Badass Psycho, misshapen limbs included.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: He makes various references to numbers when talking about loot, and has several lines that more or less tell the player to use his action skill when he's at low health.
* BreakoutMookCharacter: He's a Psycho, like the kind you've been killing or watching them blow up. One of his rants indirectly references this.
--> '''Krieg:''' Box cover, box cover! I'm the one who eats the stardom! I'm the hero of all the villains! You can't swallow my morality like a lollipop pill! I'll run around your mind and set the world record with my meat sleeves!
* BreathWeapon: "Hellfire Halitosis" lets him breathe flames.
* CallBack:
** Occasionally says "You woke the wrong dog!" when getting a Second Wind. That's what Nine-Toes in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' said to the original Vault Hunters when they fought him.
** Also, two skills in his Mania skill tree - "Strip the Flesh" and "Salt the Wound" - are two halves of a phrase spoken by most Psychos in the first game.
* TheCameo: He doesn't show up personally in the base game of ''Borderlands 3'', but shows up in various ECHO Logs.
* CannotSpitItOut: His insanity makes it difficult for him to properly express his feelings for Maya.
* CaptainObvious: His Psycho Mutant transformation. "I'VE GOT A HUGE HAND!"
* CastFromHitPoints: Effectively, if not ''directly.'' Related to SelfHarm below, he performs better when his shields are down and his Action Skill recharges faster when he takes damage to his health instead of his shields (his "Feed the Meat" skill massively increases his base health but makes his shields recharge slower to facilitate this). If he's not in enough danger already from the enemy, several of his skills actively hurt himself, like "Silence the Voices" which has a 12% to smash himself in the face with his buzz axe or his Hellborn tree that lights himself on fire (but that's actually a ''good'' thing). At any given moment, his health could dip dangerously low, pop back to full, then fall to near-death again, and repeat.
* CatchPhrase:
** The word "meat" in general. So much so that [[https://gearboxsoftwarecom.s3.amazonaws.com/images/_/20130713/28c8ac9f204cdf8bc40efd5a9957c514823af91f.jpg Tiny Tina]] thinks she can talk to him using only the word meat.
--->''In words you will understands: MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT BLOOD MEAT CAKE''
** He has a tendency to scream "NIPPLE SALADS" at times. It's even featured in his Legendary Psycho class mod.
** His inner/good personality has "...Close enough", usually said in mild annoyance after telling the dominant personality to say something and hearing it expressed as some sort of lunatic non-sequitur.
* CerebusRetcon: While ''2'' established his sane side is deeply embarassed by his insane side, this was largely PlayedForLaughs. ''The Fantastic Fustercluck'' instead focuses on how badly his inability to control himself and connect with others have completely destroyed his self-image, to the point it's revealed he believed all Crimson Raiders hated him and sent him on the field hoping he'd never come back.
* CloseRangeCombatant: His skills all force him into close-to-mid range combat to the point that certain gun-related skills specifically exclude sniper rifles.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Much of his dialog is generally nonsense involving meat or blood in some way. Especially exacerbated in Raving Retribution, where he'll go on completely unintelligible rants while spouting homing fireballs from his body.
-->''MY STOMACH IS CLEAR, AND MY MIND IS FULL OF'' '''BACON!'''
* CombatSadomasochist:
** Some of his lines seem to openly invite enemies to injure him, particularly ones involved with "Salt the Wound". Additionally, Buzz Axe Rampage has its cooldown reduced whenever he takes damage, with health damage in particular giving him much more cooldown reduction than damage to shields. To facilitate this, certain skills of his increase the recharge delay on his shields.
** He also seems to really like being set on fire (his sane personality, not so much).
--> "HURTS...SO...GOOD!"\\
"STAB ME A THOUSAND TIMES!"\\
"NOTHING MAKES ME STRONGER THAN A SUCKING CHEST WOUND!"
** When getting revived, sometimes he will tell his teammate to stop reviving him.
* CompositeCharacter: He's a composite of all the various enemy psychos you can see in the game, that ''you'' get to play as instead. The melee-focused psychos with buzz axes, the burning psychos who are heavily resistant to fire and breathe fire on you, the suicide psychos who blow themselves up with grenades, the psycho marauders who shoot at you, and he can even learn the ability to become a huge mutated badass psycho.
* CoolMask: Wears a gas mask version of the normal Psycho mask as his default Head. Every single one of his alternate Heads is some form of mask, hat, or helmet which covers most of his face.
* CooldownManipulation:
** His Action Skill "Buzz Axe Rampage" gets its cooldown reduced by 1 second for every 3.5% base health lost.
** Blood Overdrive is one of the very unique skills in the game because it can decrease ''grenade fuse time'' by 0.005 seconds for every stack of Bloodlust. With a large number of Bloodlust, your grenades detonate faster, or even immediately after being thrown.
** Fuel the Rampage decreases your skill's cooldown time when you take damage.
* CripplingOverspecialization: The Mania tree has skills that focus on [[CriticalStatusBuff reducing health to rampage even further]]. Under this strategy, shield recharge gets slower with certain skills in order to encourage a [[DifficultButAwesome risk-and-reward gamplay]] by having your HP reduced. As risky as it may seem, Mania works surprisingly well with the Flame of the Firehawk legendary Nova shield and Roid Shields that provide lasting offensive benefits when they are depleted. Naturally on the other side of the spectrum, this skill tree also lessens the overall effectiveness of shields that provide bonuses when they are full, such as Spike, Amp and all other Nova shields, as it would take longer for these to recover.
* CriticalStatusBuff: A fair number of his skills involve buffing Krieg when he takes damage, or when his shields are down. He is also the only character to have absolutely no skills that are only active when his shields are full, making him a perfect match for the Rough Rider: a shield that is permanently empty but also gives damage resistance and a boost to max health.
* DamageReduction:
** "Taste of Blood" reduces the damage taken by Krieg in Buzz Axe Rampage for every stack of Bloodlust.
** "Numbed Nerves" gives him damage reduction when he's on fire.
* DeadpanSnarker: When he's not wallowing in self-loathing, his sane half can be pretty snarky.
-->''It's over, idiot. You're going to die here and now and the last words out of your mouth will have been "poop train."''
* DeathSeeker: His inner voice will occasionally comment [[KarmicNod "I deserve this"]] when Krieg either bashes himself in the face or is set on fire.
** When using Redeem the Soul, ''both'' Kriegs have Death Seeker-esque lines. Although for Psycho Krieg it could just as easily be part of his CombatSadomasochist nature, with him enjoying the thrill of ''almost'' dying in battle.
--->"''I'' WANNA DIE HERE! ''ME!''"\\
"YOU DON'T DIE! ''I DIE!''"\\
"YOU'RE IN MY SPOT!"\\
("You don't deserve this. I do.")
* DesperationAttack:
** The "Light The Fuses" skill, which lets him toss dynamite and move normally when his HP reaches 0. He can also detonate it Suicide Psycho style, though he'll get Second Wind if he manages to score a kill with it.
** There's also the "Release the Beast" skill, in which if Krieg activates Buzzaxe Rampage when at 1/3 of his health he transforms into a Badass Psycho.
* {{Determinator}}: Occasionally when he's downed, Krieg's inner voice will tell him that he cannot die, not while there are bad guys to be killed and not while "she's" still out there.
* DifficultButAwesome: Mechanically, Krieg is a high-risk high-reward character who is typically more challenging to play as gameplay-wise, [[MagikarpPower at least until you have a proper build going on]].
** His Action Skill encourages a melee playstyle (although he also has a ranged attack while doing it, the buzz-axe is slow, easy-to-dogdge and can arc). This is in contrast to the other five playable Vault Hunters whose Action Skills can make them safely attack or escape from a distance.
** Per the developer's own admittance, the Mania tree falls squarely into this. Taking damage actually buffs Krieg, even moreso without shields. This places him at a higher risk of frequently getting knocked into Fight For Life mode, but one skill completely restores his health with every kill he makes while using his action skill.
** Several Bloodlust tree skills feed into one another: there's a grenade kill skill that makes gun damage better, a gun kill skill that makes melee damage better and a melee kill skill that makes grenades better. Keeping your Bloodlust from decaying is hard enough, keeping track of all this in the middle of battle is even harder, but if you pull it off: a string of ever-increasing deadliness.
** All of his skill trees have perks that can feed into each other. Strip The Flesh and Salt The Wound can grant huge boosts to Torgue Shotguns, and Fuel The Rampage (taking damage speeds up Buzz Axe Rampage cooldown) and Release The Beast (Krieg turns into a Badass Psycho with maxed health and massive damage reduction when special is triggered at 33% health, like when you come out of fight for your life mode) means that unless you were in Buzz Axe Rampage when put into fight for your life mode, as soon as you come out, you can immediately trigger a buzz axe rampage, and go on a killing spree as a Badass Psycho mutant.
** The Hellborn skill tree: you gain bonuses by setting yourself on fire. At higher levels, with the Delusional Damage perk, you can set yourself on fire by using any elemental attacks, including corrosive, which you will use a lot later in the game. Elemental Empathy causes a fraction of all elemental damage you deal to heal you.
* EatsBabies: "I like my treasure like my baby steaks: RARE!" Since Good Kreig threatens him with a HeroicSuicide if he ever hurts an innocent, if this did actually happen (not a guarantee) the babies were presumably dead before he got to them.
* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: A psycho's way of speaking, according to an [=ECHO=] recording of him and Tiny Tina and the context clues given through Krieg's interactions, have very specific meanings when deciphered... It's just that a Psycho's way of speaking leans on those aforementioned context clues like a crutch, and it's rare to be in a situation with a Psycho that's more inclined to clarify what they mean over reducing your skull to their morning porridge.
* EmpathicHealer: "Redeem the Soul", which lets Krieg instantly revive allies in exchange for immediately putting him in "Fight for your Life" mode.
* EveryoneHatesMath: Comparing weapons makes Good Kreig worry about popping a blood vessel.
* EvolvingWeapon: His buzzaxe slowly changes appearance as he levels up and takes certain skills.
* ExperienceBooster: Enemies killed with Pull the Pin will grant Krieg double experience point when he respawns.
* EyepatchOfPower: While not exactly an eyepatch, his default head has his right eye covered by one of the belts that fastens his mask to his face.
* TheFaceless: Played with. Krieg's face is largely covered by his various masks, but certain heads show parts of his face, and you can get a rough idea of what he looks like from that. It doesn't appear to be especially disfigured, oddly enough. He does seem to have really bad teeth.
* FlamingSword: Fire Fiend gives him a chance to set enemies on fire with melee attacks, with his axe becoming wreathed in flames.
* FriendlyFireproof: Averted. "Fuel the Rampage" makes him susceptible to friendly fire. Which Makes this build the worst if coupled with Anarchy Gaige. Both fight best up close, and the thicker the enemy the better. Friendly fire is almost guaranteed.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: The ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC shows that the Psycho part of Krieg has internalized his self-hatred to the point that he sees himself as this, which is represented by distorted versions of Brick, Mordecai and Lilith that are actively hostile to him and the Vault Hunters. However, his sane side eventually reminds him that contrary to what he feels, they actually did see him as a friend by showing a memory of them inviting him for drinks.
* FunnySchizophrenia:
** A rabid, raving, 'roid-raging, ramblin' rancher who drinks blood and chops people into stew meat, mostly played for ([[BlackComedy dark]]) laughs when it doesn't dip into SurpriseCreepy. While not completely divorced from reality (at least lucid enough that we can take quests and dialogue at face value), he's still a giggling axe murderer with a good half that keeps him pointed at the (other, worse) bad guys.
** Downplayed in "The Fantastic Fustercluck". Traces of this are still present as you interact with the personifications of both sane and insane Krieg who bicker about inane topics, but the [=DLC=] also treats it in a much more serious manner by revealing just how much Krieg loathes himself.

** The Bloodlust Skil tree focuses on gaining lots of Bloodlust stacks to strengthen Krieg in combat. By damaging enemies, you can earn stackable passive bonuses, but these can decay fast after a gunfight. Many of the skills involve adding more bonuses, more ways to earn Bloodlust, and some modify the duration/timer parameters of the stacks.
** Elemental Elation gives a stacking buff to Krieg's magazine size and fire rate when elemental damage-over-time effects are inflicted to enemies.
* GlassCannon: Gearbox's take on Krieg is a "High risk, high reward character." Taken UpToEleven with the Hellborn and latter stages of the Mania skill trees, with the main tactics behind Hellborn to actively set Krieg on fire for special attacks and stat increases, and Mania's "Silence The Voices" skill QUADRUPLING his melee damage in exchange for a one-in-five chance of hitting himself upon melee-ing, which most likely will send him into "Fight For Your Life Mode" with the extremely high damage he deals.
* GoneHorriblyWrong: Whatever reasons Hyperion had for experimenting on him, they probably didn't involve him getting loose and wreaking bloody vengeance upon them.
* HardModePerks: The damage of his Light the Fuse skill is increased by 500% only when playing in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode.
* HavingABlast: His final "Bloodlust" skill, Bloodsplosion, makes every single enemy an ActionBomb: when they die, they go BOOM! Better yet, if the explosion kills an enemy it can start off a domino effect of explosions.
* HearingVoices: Indeed he does, though most of the time he's just hearing the person he used to be. The interesting/slightly creepy part is that if Krieg's in a multiplayer group, nobody else will hear the sane voice (except for certain lines where the sane personality is actually the one speaking aloud).
* HeroicBuild: "My pecs have pecs!" indeed.
* HeroicWillpower:
** The original personality is able to exert some level of control over the dominant personality's actions...sometimes. [[WordOfGod Gearbox reps]] compare said personality to a driver of a huge truck with its brakes cut careening through a town. He can't stop it or slow it, but he can at least steer away from the innocent - and if a jerk or two winds up wrapped around his bumper, he's not weeping.
** The ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC shows that [[spoiler:the Psycho personality itself is a manifestation of Krieg's own will to survive and protect what is left of his shattered psyche after Benedict's experiments, and it's hostility to everyone is its desire to [[NeverBeHurtAgain protect Krieg from anyone who would ever hurt him]]. Without it he would have succumbed to despair and just waited for his death]].
* HiddenDepths:
** If the ECHO Log between him and Maya in ''Borderlands 3'' is any indication, he seems to think of himself as "just a psycho", implying some self-hatred. This is shown in "Fantastic Fustercluck" as Psycho Krieg imagining Brick, Mordecai and Lilith always hating him and treating him as their attack dog when in truth they liked him just fine and just couldn't understand what he was actually saying.
** An ECHO Log in the base game of ''3'' states that prior to his current state Krieg was a highly capable stealth operative who preferred silently hunting down his prey.
** "Fantastic Fustercluck" also reveals in an ECHO Log as well as a sidequest that the sane part of Krieg likes chess because of its ordered nature and rules.
* HomingProjectile: Raving Retribution makes Krieg summon homing balls of fire that seek out enemies when he is on fire.
* HulkingOut: Release the Beast turns him into an absolute monster, both figuratively and literally.
* IAmAMonster:
** What his inner voice constantly thinks of him. Also one of the quotes upon activating Release the Beast. A couple of his quotes have Krieg trying to shout down his inner voice and declare that he is a monster, and ''he loves it''. One even says it word for word:
-->There is no me, there is no you! There is only the never ending spit and bile of combat! The twenty-four hour murder spree of shining metal! I drink the blood and eat the loot and breathe the numbers, because '''{{I AM A MONSTER}}! NOW AND FOREVER!'''
** One of his "Redeem the Soul" lines shows that Psycho Krieg also has negative feelings towards his "monster" status.
--->Monster down, ''Angel up!''
* IncendiaryExponent: Pretty much the whole point of Krieg's ''Hellborn'' skill-tree. See InfernalRetaliation below.
* IntelligibleUnintelligible: As revealed in ''Fantastic Flustercluck'', [[spoiler:Maya can understand Krieg as far back as their first conversation, making him this trope. Even though Krieg says a completely random sentence, Maya is able to decipher that fighting to survive is all he knows and respond accordingly that survival isn't all that matters.]]
* InstantDeathRadius:
** Many of Krieg's more successful builds give HIM an instant death radius, making the idea of charging a hoard of powerful enemies a much more viable and entertaining tactic.
** One of the more popular shields to pair with him is the Love Thumper, which gives ALL of his melee attacks an explosive Nova whenever it connects and dramatically boosts his already high melee damage via its roid damage. This means that, when paired with Buzzaxe Rampage, Krieg will one-shot almost every enemy not ridiculously over his own level and have a literal instant death radius whenever his melee attacks connect. As a side effect, the Love Thumper's explosive Nova hurts allies as well, meaning that NO ONE will want to get within arms reach of a Love Thumper-wearing Krieg.
** Another wonderful combination is Mania/Hellborn with "Flame of the Firehawk". Flame of the Firehawk is a nova shield, a shield class that releases an elemental blast with a wide range when depleted, that KEEPS BLASTING until it recharges. Krieg's skills and the constant self-immolation mean that if the shield is recharging, there is likely nothing left to kill.
* ImmuneToFlinching: Krieg is heavier than the other Vault Hunters, giving him less knockback from attacks, which goes good with his melee-centric play-style. This also has the unfortunate side effect of making grenade jumping and certain Badass Challenges impossible to do using him, such as getting a geyser to launch you to the top of the Happy Pig Motel sign. It doesn't launch him nearly high enough. Gearbox patched said Challenges out of the Psycho's Badass Challenge list, possibly because they couldn't rework Krieg to accomplish them without making his knockback the same as the other characters.
* InfernalRetaliation:
** With points in the Hellborn tree, he gets a ton of buffs from being on fire, and he even has a chance to set himself on fire with his fire attacks (and with the Delusional Damage skill, ''any'' elemental damage).
** "Raving Retribution" is the most literal version of this trope possible. While Krieg is on fire, every time he gets hit or shot by an enemy, he automatically shoots out a fireball which homes in on that enemy.
* InfinityMinusOneSword: Triggering your active ability at critical health (1/3rd or less) with 'Release The Beast' turns you into a rampaging Badass Psycho, buffing your melee damage, adding to your damage resistance, and topping off your health instantly. Best of all, your Active Ability is ready for use again ''the second it wears off.'' As such, you can keep popping this skill over and over each time your health goes critical. Suffice to say, unless you're armed to the teeth with Legendary Weapons, your Action Skill will see a ''lot'' of use.
* InterfaceScrew: Killing enemies with your action skill splatters your camera with lots of blood.
* IWasQuiteALooker: From what we can see of his face combined with his tall and muscular HeroicBuild, Krieg might have been quite attractive before Hyperion got their hands on him.
* IWillWaitForYou: According to a series of ECHO Logs in ''3'', [[spoiler:Krieg has been spending the last few years waiting for Maya to return to Pandora as well as struggling to regain control over his body. Sadly, Maya's death dashes Krieg's hopes for a reunion]], and part of the main storyline of the ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC involves [[spoiler:protecting his memory of Maya from his own insanity so that he doesn't lose what he has left of her]].
* JekyllAndHyde: In this case, the Hyde personality is the dominant one while the Jekyll at least tries to make sure that the former only kills evildoers. By the time of ''3'', both sides share equal control.
* JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind: ''Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck'' is a journey inside Krieg's mind and his perspective on the events of the series.
** In his mind, his personalities are represented by two beings, [[RedOniBlueOni Sane Krieg and Psycho Krieg]]. Psycho Krieg is red and angry, while Sane Krieg is blue and calm. [[spoiler:Psycho Krieg is the response to Pandora, he wants to protect himself by pushing others away and isolating himself.]]
** When the two personalities are found staring at shadows; they claim it is the world despite the cave exit being very close by. This represents Krieg's agoraphobia, he's afraid of leaving a safe space and he only sees the world for what he thinks it is.
** Sane Krieg is found blowing himself up and claims that nobody cares about him because nobody trying to stop him from hurting himself. This represents Krieg's internal self-hatred and paranoia, he hates himself more than anything on Pandora, believes nobody will care if he dies, and he's terrified of the future.
** [[spoiler:The evil Vault Hunters are what Krieg thinks of the main cast, they see him as a small, rabid, inconsequential, disposable dog who doesn't deserve their respect. He believes they hate him but they did actually like him and did care about him.]]
** [[spoiler:The Locomöbius is his train of thought, it took Maya away because Krieg was afraid of losing his memory of her.]]
** [[spoiler:Dr. Benedict is his trauma of being turned into a psycho.]]
** [[spoiler:Psychoreaver is his uncontrollable rage, the part of Krieg that wants to punish the world for what it did to him.]]
** The chess game represents Krieg's fear of uncertainty, he and Maya are the king and queen pieces (both are important pieces of the game) and the Vault Hunter points out that as white pieces ''they'' are the attackers. This represents how Krieg is afraid that he'll get into battle one day and cause the death of someone important to him. It also represents how he justifies his actions; to him, if he feels like a victim then he can justify himself for what comes next. An audio log states that Sane Krieg loves the game because he enjoys how calculated it is.
** The burial of his buzz-axe represents Krieg's need to protect himself.
** The psychiatric hospital represents Krieg's trauma, he believes the hospital was hell on Earth and he has to learn that it wasn't ''as'' bad as he remembered it. As there were some good memories there as well.
* TheJuggernaut: With the right skills, Krieg can be nearly impossible to kill, particularly when mutated into a Badass Psycho.
* KarmicNod: Whenever he hits himself with "Silence the Voices" or gets set alight, Krieg's inner voice says that he deserves it, seeing it as a just punishment for the [[IAmAMonster monster he's become.]]
* LargeHam: He often shouts in an overly exaggerated manner.
* LaughingMad: He has quite the variety of maniacal laughter.
* LifeDrain: Elemental Empathy allows Krieg to heal himself by inflicting elemental damage on enemies.
* LightningBruiser: When using his action skill, combined with GlassCannon because he can only melee, and thanks to the Silence The Voices talent above he can damage himself.
* LoveAtFirstSight: He falls in love with Maya upon seconds of meeting her. Unfortunately, his [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} lack of communication skills]] causes her to shoot at him.
* LoveRedeems: At least, the inner personality hopes that Maya will be the one to make him sane once more.
* MadBomber: "Light the Fuse" makes him throw sticks of dynamyte pulled off a time bomb when in Fight For Your Life! mode. He can also tape them to his axe, turning it into a grenade. There's also a skill that makes him drop a free grenade when he dies that gets 2X EXP.
* MadeOfExplodium: Bloodsplosion makes every killed enemy to explode with an elemental nova blast of the element that killed them, or a typical explosive nova blast otherwise.
* MadnessMantra: With Raving Retribution, Krieg will go on various extended, maniacal, sometimes fourth-wall breaking rants while on fire. Removed in update 1.6.
* MagikarpPower:
** The Bloodlust tree is not very powerful at low levels, with very minor boosts to relatively useless things like magazine capacity and weapon swap speed, especially considering these boosts are based entirely on the rapidly-decaying Bloodlust stacks. However, the later Bloodlust tree skills are much, much more powerful, and also turn the weak tier one skills into essential building blocks for the rest of the tree. Not to mention that the later equipment and expanded inventory capacity and ammunition capacity allow for a much swifter accumulation of Bloodlust stacks.
** Really, all of Krieg's skill trees are like this. When you only have a few skill points, none of them are that great. Going into Hellborn early will probably just kill you for very little benefit. Bloodlust will provide very little advantages, and you probably won't have the equipment to really make use of Mania for a while. However, once you get enough skill points to start maxing out the trees...
* ManOnFire: His "Hellborn" skill tree actually ''encourages'' you to set him on fire. You practically get the ability to light yourself on fire at will as you put more points into it.
* MeaningfulEcho: Most of his skills are named after phrases that the enemy Psychos may randomly shout in combat, including some catchphrases of the named bandits. However, such phrases make more sense from a gameplay perspective. Some of these names include "Light the Fuse", "Strip the Flesh", "Salt the Wound" amongst others.
* MeaningfulName: Krieg is [[BilingualBonus German for war]]. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Originally]] his name would have been Blitz but the developers decided that Krieg sounds more like an actual name.
* MoodWhiplash:
** Sometimes his quotes are SurrealHumor...
-->You loud sacks of filth and sour cream can hit me with your pain pinatas all day, but you'll never take the jellied fantasies of my wasted youth! My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!"
** And sometimes they're not.
--->"You're gonna scream, just like she did; open mouth, open heart, blood and noise forever piercing my skull, poisoning me with its psychopathic purple liquid. We watched it all, and felt the knife split down the middle... CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"
** And sometimes it switches in the same quote:
--->"I can't see her anymore. She was so clear and bright. But the blood is in my eyes and I can only watch the ocean of blood. Its waves crash against my forehead again and again AND I JUST NEED TO LEARN HOW TO SURF!"
* MookHorrorShow: The debut trailers show bandits being obliterated by his silhouette. Also, the PAX presentation in which he was introduced had a short video set to "In the Halls of the Mountain King" consisting of Krieg demonstrating his various in-game abilities upon enemies.
* MoreDakka: Elemental Elation has it so that Krieg gains an increasing stack of buffs to his fire rate and magazine size anytime he deals elemental damage. Paired with Blood-Filled Guns (which increases his magazine size based on his Bloodlust stacks), he can supply some impressive Dakka. Embrace the Pain increases fire rate as long as shields are down; it and Feed the Meet both increase shield recharge delay, meaning you keep the buff for longer.
* NeverHurtAnInnocent: The voice in his head tries to direct Krieg's rage towards "the deserving" and even swears that if he ever kills an innocent person that he ''will'' take over and commit suicide.
* NiceGuy: Sane Krieg, as most defined in "Fantastic Fustercluck", is shown to be an affable and understanding person compared to his insane side and, well, most characters in general.
* TheNicknamer: Being that speaking coherently is near-impossible for him, Krieg tends to refer to other characters by nicknames. Notably, he's referred to Maya as "Pretty Lady", "Blue Tattoo" or "Blue Girl" and Moxxi as "Bosom Clown".
* NighInvulnerability: Of the HealingFactor type. With the right skills Krieg recovers health based on elemental damage, overkill damage, and fully heals every time he uses his action skill or gets a kill while in it. Combined with his insane damage output this makes him borderline unstoppable unless something can OneHitKill him.
* NoIndoorVoice: Anything that Krieg says is shouted, just like every other Psycho on Pandora. It's even extended to ''every single name'' for his Heads and Skins, which are in ALL CAPS.
* NotSoAboveItAll: There are rare moments when Krieg's sane personality is actually impressed by the amount of carnage he can cause.
--> "(This is kinda awful... but mostly awesome.)"
* OneWingedAngel: His final Mania talent turns him into a Badass Psycho if he uses his action skill at 33% health or less, giving him an even bigger melee damage bonus along with damage resistance.
* PlayingWithFire: His "Hellborn" skill tree deals almost exclusively in fire elemental damage. [[IncendiaryExponent Being set on fire actually buffs him.]]
* PoorCommunicationKills: When he first met Maya, his sane side wanted to tell her how beautiful she was and that she may be the one to save him. [[TalkativeLoon What came out was decidedly less eloquent]].
-->'''"I'M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!"'''
* PowerAtAPrice: Pain is Power increases weapon and melee damage but at the cost of decreasing critical hit damage.
* PowerupLetdown: Being an intensely melee-focused character, Krieg has an inherent melee damage bonus that increases with his level. However this bonus will be overridden by the +50% damage bonus from holding bladed guns. After a certain level, using bladed guns (except for the rare guns with at least +100% melee damage, such as the Law or the Rapier) will actually ''weaken'' his melee attacks.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Downplayed. His eyes are constantly bloodshot.
* RedOniBlueOni: In the "Fantastic Fustercluck" DLC, Krieg has this with himself since his Sane side is blue while his Psycho side is red.
* RegeneratingHealth: Averted, except when equipping a Meat class mod. Every other character has some form of skill-based gradual life recovery[[note]][=Zer0=] only gets constant regeneration during [=Decepti0n=] with points in Innervate[[/note]] but he only heals himself through forms of LifeDrain. His primary method is the risky but satisfying Buzz Axe Rampage that heals him to full for every enemy he kills in melee (or who he manages to hit with his thrown axe). He can also get healing from overkilling his enemies if he uses "Thrill of the Kill" or heal himself for inflicting damage-over-time to enemies if he goes down the Hellborn tree.
* TheRightHandOfDoom: "Release the Beast" makes his right arm absolutely massive while his left arm shrivels up.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: While revenge is a basic motivator for all of the Vault Hunters, Krieg ''really'' has it out for Hyperion because they are the ones responsible for making him into what he is. Notably, his version of Handsome Jack's mask is named ''"GO TO HELL DIE DIE DIE"'' and his sane side openly encourages him to massacre Hyperion troops.
-->''"Yes. Make them pay for what they did to us."''
* SanityStrengthening:
** Krieg is implied to be regaining his sanity by his inner voice/consciences gaining more influence over him as the game goes on. Although his quotes don't reflect it, as he continues his insane raving throughout the game, his involvement in helping fight Handsome Jack and (optionally) taking side quests to help others certainly indicates he's in it for more than killing. Silence The Voices is stated to be his psycho side's attempt to stifle his inner voice. As of the end of the ''Tiny Tina'' DLC he is calm and collected with the other Vault Hunters, and he is seen mournfully sitting at Roland's funeral, indicating a respect for Roland and the others.
** Also reflected in gameplay. At the start of the game Good Krieg's lines are barely audible, but as he levels up the "Little Voice'' gets louder.
** The Wedding Day Massacre DLC ''further'' implies Krieg's sanity is improving, as his quotes actually show an awareness of his surroundings.
--> ''[when motivating Ed to break open the doors]'' "SHE'S WAITING TO SUCKLE AT THE TEAT OF [[RescueRomance EXPLOSION CHIVALRY!"]]
-->''[when asked by Innuendobot if his oedipal feelings for Moxxi are normal]'' [[HeroicSelfDeprecation "DON'T ASK ME TO SHOW YOU NORMAL!"]]
** In ''3'', there's an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGVGc5uydFA ECHO recording]] of Krieg talking to Maya about [[spoiler:the fact Sanctuary has been destroyed and Maya has to leave for Athenas. He's actually holding up his end of the conversation, more or less -- even his shouting about poop and knives is pretty clearly about his feelings. Another series of ECHO Logs shows that Krieg's sane side is now capable of gaining control temporarily and speaking aloud after years of work. At the end of the ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC, Krieg's Sane and Psycho sides are able to come to an understanding and agree to make the best of their shared existence together, with Sane Krieg stating that while Psychoreaver will never get weaker they are now strong enough to properly fight back]].
* ScreamingWarrior: As befitting a Psycho, Krieg is a towering amalgam of violence, madness, and loud noises. This is doubly true when it comes to his action skill, which has him break out his buzz axe and commence with both the mangling and the random, nonsensical rambling.
* SelfHarm: "Silence the Voices" makes it so that he has a chance to hurt himself in exchange for a major buff to melee damage and putting points in the Hellborn tree gives him a chance to light himself on fire when using Incendiary weapons (or with any elemental damage if you take Delusional Damage).
* ScreenShake: Unlike the rest of the playable Vault Hunters in the second game, Krieg's melee attack always comes with this effect.
* ShipTease: With Maya
** In his backstory video his inner voice finds Maya very attractive, and his outer voice refers to her as "PRETTY LADY".
** Tiny Tina's "invite" to Maya for her [[MagicAmpersand Bunkers & Badasses]] game mentions Krieg [[EatingTheEyeCandy staring at Maya a whole lot]].
** In the Wedding Day Massacre, when asked by Moxxi if he ever had a love in his life, he responds with:
--->''"THE TINY ONE, THE SAD FACED MOTHER AND THE BLUE TATTOO FOREVER AND EVER."'' This implies that he feels a level of affection for Tiny Tina (the Tiny One), Mad Moxxi (the Sad Faced Mother because of her makeup and being Ellie and Scooter's mother), in addition to actually being in love with Maya (the Blue Tattoo).
** The ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC reveals that Maya is the one thing that can get Krieg to pull himself together somewhat and stay focused on the task at hand.
* SkullForAHead:
** His head customization from Captain Scarlett's DLC. In his case it's possible that it's just a mask, unlike Salvador's head.
** He also gets one in Mad Moxxi's Wedding Day Massacre. It's [[{{Gorn}} very clearly not a mask this time, though.]]
* SplitPersonality: Besides his "default" AxCrazy self, he has a saner, more moral voice in his head - his original personality - who ensures that he only kills "the deserving". They do ''not'' get along.
* SplitPersonalityMerge: At the end of the ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC, [[spoiler:after the defeat of Psychoreaver (the manifestation of the insanity of Psychos) Krieg's Sane and Psycho half seemingly combine in order to make something new of himself]].
* SplitPersonalityTakeover: Krieg's inner voice threatens to do this if his psychopathic side ever harms an innocent, and makes it clear that he'll do it just to kill them both.
* SurplusDamageBonus: One Mania skill gives him health for overkilling enemies. Find some way to do ludicrous damage to enemies and he'll get his health back, no problem!
* TakingYouWithMe: "Pull the Pin" has Krieg drop a grenade when he dies, gaining double XP if it kills someone. Inverted in Light the Fuses mode, where successfully suicide-bombing enemies brings him back to life.
* TalkativeLoon: Takes the cake and then goes on to rob the entire bakery before setting it on fire, burning it down, and rolling around in the ashes. Every word out of his mouth is either nonsensical, humorous rambling or berserk, bloodthirsty screaming, a trait he shares with basic Psycho enemies (who either scream violence-related nonsense or ramble ridiculous nonsense).
* ThemeNaming: All but one of the skills in the Bloodlust tree have "Blood" in their names, all but one of the skills in the Mania tree follow a "[Verb] the [Noun]" pattern, and all the skills in the Hellborn tree are alliterative. There's also one skill each in Bloodlust and Hellborn that conforms to the Mania tree's theme.
* ThrowDownTheBomblet:
** Light the Fuses has him tossing dynamite when his health reaches zero. He also has several skills that improve explosive damage, as well as the Crunch class mods.
** Buzz Axe Bombardier straps his throwable buzz axes with dynamites.
* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: When in Rampage mode, Krieg can toss his axe as well as swing it. One of his skills even more or less turns it into a grenade by strapping a bundle of dynamite to it, making it deal explosive damage when tossed. Another skill gives him a chance to set enemies on fire with melee attacks, including thrown axes.
* TokenEnemyMinority: Seemingly the only semi-heroic Psycho of the series.
* TransformationIsAFreeAction: Release the Beast has a short animation of Krieg transforming into his Badass Psycho form, during which he's completely immune to enemy attacks.
* ViolationOfCommonSense: Pretty much his entire play-style revolves around doing things you normally try to '''''avoid''''' with the other characters. Like, say [[ManOnFire being set on fire]] or taking damage, or getting up-close and personal while hacking at people with a buzz axe. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen The whole idea for a character with this kind of play-style was thought of before the game was launched, but was saved for DLC because it might have turned away some players.]]
* VoiceOfTheLegion: Triggering Release the Beast gives Krieg's voice a reverb effect as well as lowering its pitch.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: Considering that he's more or less an upgraded version of a Psycho, Krieg has no shirt. Often the alternatives skins feature body-paint or tattoos rather than garments. Although there are a few skins that give him something to wear, examples are from the Mercenary Day Headhunter DLC which gives him an [[HomemadeSweaterFromHell ugly Christmas sweater]], and his [[VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel Pre-Sequel]] skin gives him a safety vest, to name a few.
* WordSaladTitle: His head and skin names are a fountain of unending randomness. And yet are often ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin at the same time. For example, one head named I CAN'T BREATHE IN THIS is an extremely bulky full-face-concealing helmet, DOUBLE SUPLEX TIME is a luchador mask, and one skin, named "JEEEEEEEANS", does indeed give Krieg's pants a blue texture similar to blue jeans. Particularly hilarious is his special Jakobs-themed skin, named MY LEFT BOOB SAYS "OBS", most likely because the Jakobs logo is tattooed directly onto his bare chest.
* WreckedWeapon: By the time of "Fantastic Fustercluck" his Buzz-Axe has finally gave out and a sidequest involves giving it a proper burial for the sake of Krieg's Psycho half.
* YourHeadAsplode: Referenced in one of his critical kill lines.
-->"HOW CAN I SNAP YOUR NECK IF YOU DON'T ''HAVE'' ONE?!"

[[folder:Gaige]]
!!Gaige (AKA The Mechromancer)
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gaige_1141.png]]
[[quoteright:350:[[labelnote:Click here for her [=BL3=] appearance]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gaige_intro_bl3.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]

->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/CheramiLeigh and Creator/LuciChristian

->''"I'm getting a god complex and '''I LIKE IT!'''"''

A high-school engineering genius who was forced to flee to Pandora after an "incident" in her school's science fair resulted in her rival "exploding." Travels with her personal RobotBuddy, D374-TP, or "Deathtrap," which she digistructs using her specific skill. Her secondary mechanic is Anarchy stacks, which are awarded when she kills an enemy or reloads an empty gun during combat, are lost when she dies or reloads a non-empty gun, and decrease her accuracy while increasing her gun damage; as a result, she works best with close range guns with small clips that don't rely on accuracy. Her skill trees are oriented towards increasing her and Deathtrap's survivability ('''Best Friends Forever'''), increasing her damage output and taking advantage of Shock elemental damage ('''Little Big Trouble'''), and using Anarchy stacks to becoming more powerful ('''Ordered Chaos''').
----
* AccidentalMurder: When Marcie got first place the science fair [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney by having her father buy off all the judges]], she started gloating and shoved Gaige. Deathtrap's IFF protocols registered her as an enemy, so he attacked, there was some sort of error, and Marcie...[[LudicrousGibs exploded]]. Also, the stray cat that walked into the line of fire during Deathtrap's testing of its claws.
* AGodAmI: If you build up enough anarchy stacks her "got a stack" quotes start drifting this way.
-->"I'm getting a god complex and I LIKE IT!"\\
"I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA!"\\
"I AM THE INFINITE!"\\
"I AM THE GOD OF DAMAGE!"
* TheAlcoholic: She had acquired a taste for margaritas in "Guns, Love, and Tentacles," to the point where she built a dispenser in Deathtrap and frequently asks for one over the Echo. She's very, ''clearly'' drunk off her ass by the end of the campaign.
* AlmightyJanitor: In "Guns, Love, and Tentacles," Wainwright and Hammerlock have hired her to be their wedding planner. She considers it her duty to make sure the wedding goes perfectly, so when a crazy cult starts interfering she doesn't find anything odd about picking up a gun and fighting back. She coordinates much of the DLC, and makes it clear several times that she just sees it as [[ThinkNothingOfIt a normal and expected part of her job]].
-->'''Gaige:''' Never mess with a wedding planner.
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Her father walks in during her ECHO casting bringing her hot cocoa to drink, leading to this:
-->'''Gaige:''' I don't need cocoa, dad! I am a woman of science and asskickery, not children's beverages!\\
'''Gaige's Dad:''' Heh heh, whatever you say, sweetheart, I'll just leave it here.\\
''[[{{Beat}} (Gaige's dad walks out, followed by a moment of silence]])''\\
'''Gaige:''' ...''(slurp)'' [[NotSoAboveItAll Dammit, that's really good.]]
* AmbiguouslyJewish: One of Gaige's lines when opening a chest is "It's like Hanukkah!"
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Wanted for "Creation of unauthorized technology, murder, and excessive adorability" according to her profile card.
* ATeamFiring: The "Anarchy" skill increases her damage while decreasing her accuracy every time she kills an enemy or she empties her clip. This can be circumvented to a degree by using Hyperion weapons and the [[PinballProjectile Close Enough]] skill in the [=BFF=] tree. The frustration of not hitting things is also circumvented by increasingly hilarious dialogue:
--> "Eh, accuracy's overrated anyway."\\
"I probably won't hit anything, but whatever!"\\
"Why am I still doing this?!"\\
"I don't even remember what accuracy ''is!''"\\
"God help you all if I actually ''hit'' something!!"\\
"[[BreakingTheFourthWall Player!]] [[PunctuatedForEmphasis WHAT! ARE YOU!]] ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis DOING?!]]''"
* ArtificialLimbs: Well, Limb, singular. She accidentally sliced her left arm - she says it's "[[{{Understatement}} not a big cut]], it barely goes like, halfway to the bone" - which gave her a great idea. Instead of using an Insta-Health injection to fix the wound, she proceeds to ''[[AnArmAndALeg finish lopping it off]]'' with a particle saw and builds a new one, which contains all of Deathtrap's digistruct data so she can quick-summon him wherever she is and whenever she wants. It can also punch through concrete, though doing so breaks its fingers off, which explains why she opts to use a hammer as a quick melee weapon instead of punching through enemies.
* AscendedFangirl: Her second ECHO has her gushing about Pandora and the Vaults. After her AccidentalMurder of Marcie, she leaves her homeworld of Eden-5 for Pandora.
* BadassAdorable: Kicks hundreds of bandits' and soldiers' asses, even while being adorable.
* BadassBoast: In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, upon seeing that Marcie's uncle is dead:
-->"Ha! SUCK IT, Holloway family! Even if your hitman hadn't fallen outta the sky for some weird-ass reason, I woulda taken him out anyway. '''I killed Handsome friggin' JACK!''' You think one little assassin can take me down? BOOYAH. Also, sorry I killed your daughter."
* BadassBookworm: Built Deathtrap. Can mow down enemies like there's no tomorrow. Short and skinny.
* TheBeastmaster: All her trees buff Deathtrap, but Best Friends Forever focuses on this the most.
* BeautyMark: Her reappearance in ''Borderlands 3'' reveals her to have one, previously hidden under the bandaid on her face.
* TheBerserker: Ordered Chaos turns her into one. While she can do somewhat significant damage from down range with some luck, charging in is much more effective.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Next to Maya she is probably the nicest of the playable characters in the second game. This doesn't mean she's any less violent or dangerous.
* BigNo: Whenever her Anarchy stacks expire. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Hilariously]], the "NO!" gets ''longer'' the more stacks you had before they expired.
* BlindingBangs: One of the head options she starts the game with.
* BloodKnight: Gets this with Anarchy.
-->"BLOOOD!!!"
* BodyHorror: Starting off with how she got her robotic arm, there are also several skins for her head that drift into this territory. Digitized Death, Mecka Wrecka, and Metal Blood all replace her head with robotic ones, Speak No Evil has her MouthStitchedShut and her eye inhumanly distorted, and Lovely Corpse has the skin ripped right off her face.
* BombThrowingAnarchists: She has shades of this, having a skill ''called'' "Anarchy" and shouting "Smash the system!" all while racking up a body count expected of a Vault Hunter. Ironically, though, she only has a small handful of actual bomb-related skills.
* BrainsAndBondage: Finds Hammerlock's admission of liking being tied up hot, and wears half a pair of handcuffs on her wrist.
* BrattyHalfPint: Can show tendencies of this, especially against enemies.
--> '''After a Second Wind:''' Nice try, suckas!\\
'''After a critical kill:''' NOOB!
* BreakingTheFourthWall:
** Completely makes the fourth wall her bitch in regards to Anarchy. Does it no less than five times in relation to gaining Anarchy stacks. When Anarchy gets REAL high, she actually starts wondering aloud what the player is doing.
---> "[[DamnYouMuscleMemory Don't accidentally reload.]] [[MadnessMantra Don't accidentally reload.]]"\\
''(later with more stacks)'' "I think my reload button's broken."\\
"Player! [[PunctuatedForEmphasis WHAT! ARE YOU!]] ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis DOING?!]]''"\\
"[[invoked]][[GameBreaker You're breaking the game, dude!!!]]"\\
"ALLEN WRITE SOME DIALOGUE HERE!!!"
** Does it when you accidentally reload without Discord:
---> "[[DamnYouMuscleMemory Aw man, learn the controller!]]"
* BroughtDownToNormal: Lampshades it when losing Anarchy.
--> "I feel normal now."
* BullyHunter: The reason why she initially built Deathtrap. [[GoneHorriblyRight It worked a little too well]], suffice to say.
* TheBusCameBack: She returns in ''3'' in the "Guns, Love and Tentacles" DLC as Hammerlock and Wainwright's wedding planner.
* TheCameo: She shows up in ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', returning from Vault Hunting on Eptah, where she and Axton found the Vault Hunter Aurelia. They make Athena tell an abridged version of the game's story.
* CatchPhrase:
** "This is gonna be ''off the chain!''"
** "Smash the system."
* CastFromHitPoints: Blood Soaked Shields restores her shields on a kill at the cost of some of her health. This pairs up incredibly well with Amp or Turtle Shields, allowing you to keep the amplified damage so long as you keep killing or to simply maximize the Health to Shield rate.
* CasualKink: Her response to Sir Hammerlock mentioning that the way he was bound was not all that unenjoyable during The Son of Crawmerax DLC?
--> "HOT!"
* ChainedByFashion: She wears a padlock on her right wrist. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be one-half of a pair of handcuffs. She ''did'' mention being arrested (and expelled), and it'd be just like her to keep the handcuffs after escaping because they looked cool. [[LovableSexManiac And other stuff.]]
* CharacterBlog: She was the first user of the [[https://twitter.com/ECHOcasts ECHO casts twitter account]] (before it was taken over by other characters) and her own [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijs-FEk3OIk&feature=g-all-u ECHO Video Log]]. The latter makes up for her lack of in-game ECHO logs like what the original four Vault Hunters have.
* CompanionCube:
** Has this relationship with Deathtrap, boasting proudly "I love that little bot," and "I need to build you an extra arm just for high-fives!" More generally, she sometimes gets like this when she finds a nice new weapon, cooing at them and saying things like "Shush, don't worry baby, I'll take good care of you," when picking them up.
** In ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', she claims that Deathtrap wants to hear about how his "ancestors" (the loaders) were built, and promises to never ever [[RuleOfThree ever]] erase his personality. It's still unclear how much personality he actually ''has'', and how much is the CompanionCube trope.
** In ''Guns, Love, and Tentacles'', Deathtrap doesn't display any extra personality, but Gaige is clearly ''very'' dependent on him emotionally. She says more than once that he's been her only companion for the seven years she's been on the run. [[spoiler:When he seemingly dies, she has a breakdown, even though there's no reason she couldn't just build a new one. Thankfully, he CameBackStrong]].
* CooldownManipulation: The 20% Cooler skill increases your action skill's cooldown rate.
* CripplingOverspecialization: Anarchy gains damage and loses accuracy in equal percentage points.
* CriticalStatusBuff: Fancy Mathematics improves her shield rechage rate and delay based on her remaining health. The lower her health is, the faster her shields recharge.
* DaddysGirl: Despite acting like your typical rebellious teenager, she's still very close to her father; to the point he helps her flee to Pandora after the AccidentalMurder. He also rigs the shuttle of the assassin that Marcie's dad sent to kill Gaige during the "Son of Crawmerax" Headhunter DLC.
* DamageReduction: There is a skilled named Made for Sterner Stuff that gives Gaige and Deathtrap damage reduction against all sources.
* DeathFromAbove: Her skill also named "Death From Above" which makes you unleash a Digi-splosion whenever you shoot enemies while in mid-air.
* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Normally played straight like with the other characters, but averted if you decide to spec into Ordered Chaos. If you die you lose all your Anarchy stacks. Have fun getting them back if you had the max you could get. If Gaige is downed while she as a lot of Anarchy stacks, she'll ''freak out''.
-->"If I go down now, I'm screwed!"
* DifficultButAwesome: Her Ordered Chaos tree. The tree relies on the (mandatory for that tree) Anarchy skill, which gives a stackable damage buff and accuracy debuff every time you make a kill or reload a gun with an empty clip. These buffs do not degrade (outside of Fight for Your Life), but do disappear if you prematurely reload. Needless to say, hitting anything becomes difficult when you have a lot of Anarchy stacks going, but when you do hit them, they ''will'' feel it. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler:Deathtrap suffers one of these]] in the ''Guns, Love, and Tentacles'' story, [[spoiler:having installed an eltrich crystal into itself and being overloaded with its power. It's knocked out for a while, but unlike Bloodwing, it [[CameBackStrong comes back strong]] with a new deadly laser attack]].
* DisproportionateRetribution: Gaige's bounty is the highest of all the Vault Hunters at 820 billion for accidentally killing her classmate and going on the run. This seems excessive when compared to the other Vault Hunters until you realize that Marcie's father was extremely rich and could afford to put out such a massive bounty.
* DropTheHammer: Her melee weapon is a claw hammer.
* DudeWheresMyRespect:
** One of her quotes, when Deathtrap is killing, points out that he only placed 3rd in the science fair.
** She complains more about getting 3rd place as one of her rants when you idle too long.
** Hyperion Engineers will make fun of Deathtrap when it's released.
* ElementalPowers: The Little Big Trouble skill tree focuses on elemental effects namely, Burn, Slag and Shock, with a heavy emphasis on the latter. The "Make it Sparkle" skill also allows Gaige to buff Deathtrap's melee attack with any element if shot using an elemental weapon.
* EnergyWeapon: Deathtrap can be upgraded with one.
* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: Robotic Rampage gives Deathtrap the ability to lash out with a flurry of attacks – by spinning near an enemy with his claws outstretched.
* EvilLaugh: While insane she may do this. Or just say it via LampshadeHanging this trope.
-->'''"EVIL MANIACAL LAUGHTER!"'''
* EvolvingWeapon: Deathtrap's appearance changes depending on Gaige's skillset. Having points in the BFF tree gives it additional armor plating, having points in Little Big Trouble gives it bladed wings, and points in Ordered Chaos gives it bandit-style spikes. It's possible for it to have a combination of the three. The final talent in each tree also cause Deathtrap to [[PowerGlows glow]].
* EyeBeam: Deathtrap has a shock-element energy beam in his eye that he uses for long-range targets, and The Stare also gives him the ability to fire a burning beam that can ignite enemies. [[spoiler:After his eye gets upgraded with a piece of Gythian's heart, Deathtrap's laser becomes powerful enough to make enemies outright explode when shot.]]
* FingerlessGloves: Wears one on her right hand (her 'good' normal hand).
* FlirtingUnderFire: When reviving her, she will flirt with the character regardless of gender.
--> ''(Tiger growl)'' I'll be thanking you later.\\
Thanks, sexy.\\
Well, you are just hot as hell.\\
Remind me to pay you back for that.
* GadgeteerGenius: Again: Built a robot for the science fair.
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:
** She damages her robotic hand by using it to smash concrete, by the time she's on Pandora she's using that strength but using a hammer or digistructed claws to deliver the blow.
** During her ECHO logs, she mentions a few of her skills as various upgrades. For example, she thinks the reason Deathtrap dealt explosive damage to Marcie was because of a glitch in the recently-installed Discord circuits.
** Deathtrap turned Gaige into public enemy number one on her home planet by stupidly murdering the daughter of a multibillionaire. With explosions. Into red mist. In the middle of a science fair for applications of public safety. Appropriately, Deathtrap in-game is extremely overpowered but excessively stupid; he'll attack the nearest enemy regardless of health or danger, form immediate grudges with rampaging Goliaths that you're trying to level up into lootshields, and will restore your shields ''while you're in Fight For Your Life mode'' even though he could be busy spending those few precious seconds killing a weak enemy (attack nearest-enemy AI comes into play here).
* GamerChick: Gaige sometimes quotes ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'''s announcer when scoring critical hits.
* GatheringSteam:
** Upshot Robot grants both you and Deathtrap a stackable melee damage bonus every time Deathtrap kills an enemy.
** And of course, there's the Anarchy skill, which grants Gaige stacking damage bonuses everytime she empties her magazines or kills enemies. The buffs can stay permanent for that session for as long as the player can keep them up, and they decay when the player prematurely reloads or is sent into Fight for Your Life mode. The Ordered Chaos tree is [[CripplingOverspecialization specifically centered]] around this mechanic, with other skills giving more Anarchy stacks and stack rates or increasing the [[{{Cap}} maximum number]] of stacks.
** From the Little Big Trouble skill tree - Not shooting an enemy for a while gives you stacks of Interspered Outburst. The longer you wait before shooting, the higher the outburst damage becomes, as well as having a higher Slag chance against enemies.
* GenkiGirl: Is an extremely hyper young woman... [[LovableSexManiac in]] [[AGodAmI more]] [[LargeHam ways]] [[GadgeteerGenius than]] [[CasualKink one]].
* GirlishPigtails: Her default skin has her hair done up in pigtails. She still has said pigtails as of ''3'' despite being roughly 25.
* GlassCannon: Of a sort when using Ordered Chaos. She has the same base HP as each other Vault Hunters, but because of the accuracy reduction from Anarchy she has to get closer to the enemies than the others. Blood Soaked Shields can help mitigate it, but the CastFromHitPoints factor can result in death even quicker when her shields do go down.
* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Her Necrosis skin and Chaos Reigns color scheme do this to her. Necrosis provides a teal glow, Chaos Reigns an orange glow, and the two together a yellow glow.
* GogglesDoNothing: She has a pair of goggles on her head that she never seems to use for anything in the game proper.
* GratuitousJapanese: ''Domo arigato, suckas!''
* HeroOfAnotherStory: In "Guns, Love and Tentacles" she claims that she's been on various adventures offscreen that she won't be telling you about.
* IKnowMortalKombat: The way she quotes her enemies' quite swift deaths just really spills her strong love to video games, ranging from pistols, shotguns to rocket launchers and sniper rifles, while reloading much faster than most of her teammates.
* IncompatibleOrientation: She expresses a crush on Sir Hammerlock in the ''Wedding Day Massacre'' DLC, noting that she'll be all over him if he ever becomes straight. This crush is mentioned again a couple times during the ''Son of Crawmerax'' DLC, turning into PerverseSexualLust judging by how aggressively she comments about it. She seems to have gotten over it by the time she returns in ''3'', as it has been seven years and she has grown up. She's even the wedding planner for Hammerlock and Jakobs, being completely supportive of their relationship.
-->'''Gaige:''' Let's hurry it up, [[spoiler:Varkid Dude]]. '''''My man's''''' waiting on me.
* InTheHood: Her Necrosis skin has this, along with GlowingEyesOfDoom. Curiously though, the hood on her shirt that's always down is still there so she has two hoods.
* InstantWebHit: In her first ECHO, she had twelve (er, eleven) subscribers. Then five in her second, then two in her third. After accidentally killing her RichBitch classmate and going on the run, she suddenly has over twenty thousand.
* {{Irony}}: Despite her interests in being a punk herself, Gaige is quite the opposite when it comes to her education, deliberately speaking that she was 'never' sent to the principal's office, implying that she never had broken any rules at all.
* LargeHam: Again, fluctuates with her Anarchy stacks. The more stacks, the more hammy she gets. It varies between boasting over how much damage she's doing and bitching about how her accuracy blows.
* LifeDrain: The attack performed using the With Claws skill heals Gaige for the damage dealt.
* LikeADuckTakesToWater: She takes to [[DeathWorld Pandora]] very well considering she has no prior experience with guns, despite this, she does as well if not [[GameBreaker better]] than her fellow vault hunters.
* LikesOlderMen: While the Borderlands series has a dearth of males of high-school-age for comparison anyway, Gaige give a flirty compliment to the late twenties Axton in the ''Holodome'' DLC of ''The Pre-Sequel!'', considered the idea of speaking with the voice of an older man being hot if it wasn't Handsome Jack, seems to especially have a thing for the graying Sir Hammerlock, and in ''Guns, Love, and Tentacles'' asks the Vault Hunter to put in a good word for her to Eista who appears to be in his thirties.
* LovableSexManiac:
** The most flirty out of all the characters, especially illustrated by one of her idle quotes. However, it seems that she only has eyes for [[StraightGay Hammerlock]]. Though in the Holodrome DLC for ''The Pre-Sequel!'' she calls Axton an "unparallelled stud". Whether or not this is genuine attraction on her part or Gaige just being nice isn't elaborated on.
-->'''Gaige''': If I don't shoot, repair, or [[DoubleEntendre screw something]] in the next few minutes, we're going to have a problem.
** The heavy flirting could be bluster or overcompensation on her part, as noted below [[NerdsAreVirgins none of the boys at school would go anywhere near her because she's a nerd.]] Understandably, this isn't elaborated on too much.
* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: Zigzagged. When she cuts her arm "halfway to the bone", she didn't freak out at all. Hell, her first thoughts were to instantly and completely heal it. However, her second thought was to chop her arm off completely and build a new one.
* MayDecemberRomance: Tries to invoke Sir Hammerlock on this. [[{{Squick}} Almost]] to Handsome Jack.
--> '''Gaige:''' Man, this whole "Speaking with the voice of an older man" thing is nowhere near as hot as I thought it would be.
* MundaneUtility: In "Guns, Love, and Tentacles," she installed a margarita machine on Deathtrap, and he can also make omelettes.
* {{Nerd}}: Quotes ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament''; yells "GG", "Noob", and similar; built a robot in her own garage with her own skill, etc.
* NerdsAreVirgins: In the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, she mentions that she never dated because the boys at at school all thought she was too nerdy.
* NoodleIncident: Prior to Wainwright and Hammerlock's wedding, Gaige had to plan a wedding for Dr. Zed. She doesn't go into details, but it's implied that everybody died horribly (except Zed, who simply didn't show up for it).
* ObviousRulePatch: The magazine reduction disadvantage of the "Smaller, Lighter, Faster" skill renders the Infinity pistol unusable since it has a base magazine size of 1 that will be reduced to 0. However, there are "Neutral" Necromancer class mods introduced in the Tiny Tina DLC that can boost the magazine size by a minimum of 13%, making the Infinity pistol usable even when this skill is active.
* OnlyAFleshWound: Her reaction to slicing her arm ''halfway to the bone''.
* OpenMindedParent: Gaige's dad is alright with anything save for amputation:
** When she tells him that her rival stole her design, gave it to the local fascist police force and is trying to win the science fair that they are competing in with Gaige's idea, Gaige gets this reaction from her dad:
--->'''Gaige's Dad:''' You're gonna take that bitch down, right?
** When Deathtrap [[LudicrousGibs gibbed]] Marcie at the Science Fair, Gaige's dad actually helped her ''escape the police and flee to Pandora'' (using explosives), you can probably chalk him up as "Best Dad Ever".
** He once again assists her in the ''Son of Crawmerax'' DLC. He was the one who sabotaged the ship Marcie's uncle used to try getting to Pandora, killing him.
--->'''Gaige:''' ...You are the BEST DAD EVER!
* TheOtherDarrin:
** Invoked and paired with TheOtherMarty. Was originally supposed to be voiced by Creator/LuciChristian, and is even listed in the credits as such, but switched to Creator/CheramiLeigh in the middle of production. A lot of (possibly ''most'' of) Gaige's lines are still recognizably Luci; if you don't spec into Anarchy or Close Enough, you'll pretty much never hear Cherami at all.
** ''Tiny Tina's Assault On Dragon Keep'' lists both actresses as Gaige in the credits. She's specifically listed twice, first as Cherami, then as Luci a little bit later on the cast list.
** [[WordOfGod Cherami herself clarified on this issue]]. The developers thought that Luci's voice wasn't edgy enough to properly fit a rebellious punk teenager, so they brought in Cherami. She recorded all the lines that Luci had already laid down, but when the character was released, the developers made an honest mistake of keeping Luci's lines in. Just an honest oversight that they forget to cover in the last moments before releasing her character into the game. She agrees that it makes sense to have two different voices for a girl who steadily goes crazy with power.
* PinballProjectile: The "Close Enough" skill, which gives bullets that miss a chance to ricochet back at enemies but only hit for 50% damage[[note]]which means that at 400 Anarchy the bullet hits like half a ton of bricks instead of a full ton, i.e. you can still one-shot a mook off a ricochet[[/note]], and the "Nth Degree" skill, which causes every nth successful hit to ricochet at full damage.
* PlayingWithFire: The "Little Big Trouble" skills "The Stare" and "Electrical Burn" give her (and Deathtrap) some ability to do fire damage, though in the latter case it's a side-effect of shock damage.
* ThePollyanna: Adapts to her [[DeathWorld new environment]] rather quickly but maintains her disposition.
* PointlessBandaid: Worn on her right cheek.
* PowerfulButInaccurate: Can be built around this trope with the "Ordered Chaos" skill tree. Killing enemies and reloading builds up "anarchy" which increases damage at the cost of accuracy.
* PowersAsPrograms: In her ECHO casts she name-drops a bunch of her abilities as possible upgrade applications for Deathtrap or for her own arm. Whether this is true for other characters is ambiguous, but in her case, her powers ARE programs.
* PowerAtAPrice: "Smaller, Lighter, Faster" increases reload speed at the cost of decreasing magazine size.
* PowerFist: Her cybernetic arm can smash concrete (albeit at the cost of breaking its fingers). Which helps explain why a tiny teenage girl can swing a hammer as hard as a full-grown male soldier.
* PowerHigh: After building up enough anarchy stacks. Evidenced not only by her quotes showing more and more of a [[AGodAmI god complex]], but the way she yells "Anarchy!" At lower amounts, it's a straight yell of it. Higher amounts? It sounds more or less like she's being aroused by the power.
* PragmaticHero: She's basically decent, but she considers poundings delivered by a giant attack robot [[PayEvilUntoEvil a suitable response to bullying]]. Borders on NominalHero if you use Anarchy and she starts going insane, but it's entirely possible to never deposit a skill point into the tree, leaving where she falls up to the player.
* ProperTightsWithASkirt: Usually stripy, but the colors change with her different skins.
* RebelliousSpirit: And how! One of her class mods is called Punk even.
-->"PUNK NEVER DIES!"
* RegeneratingHealth:
** Has this when her gun's magazine is full, under the Cooking Up Trouble skill.
** Discord grants you this at the cost of Anarchy stacks, but this can be manually disabled by prematurely reloading.
* RetiredBadass: Technically, in that as of ''3'' she states that she's retired from Vault Hunting and has been working as a wedding planner for quite a while. Granted, she still gets into various misadventures.
* RoboSexual:
** One of her class mods have her referred to as a Technophile, while she mostly treats Deathtrap like a pet there are times she'll refer to it in more personal terms, and will often refer to guns as if they were alive (some actually are), calling them sexy.
** Notably the only person she ever outright declares an interest in is Sir Hammerlock, who has multiple limbs and and an eye replaced with machines.
* RobotMaster: Commands an "undead" robot known as a D374-TP (aka Deathtrap).
* ScienceFair: A major part of her and Deathtrap's OriginStory. Essentially Deathtrap, then called as "DT", was a science fair project designed as an "anti-bullying" robot. DT fulfilled his functions well... [[GoneHorriblyRight too well]].
* ShockAndAwe: Her Little Big Trouble tree is all about dealing large amounts of electrical damage.
** One of her skills in this tree - Shock and "AAAGGGGHHH!" - is a bit of wordplay on this trope.
* ShockwaveClap: Deathtrap can do this if the player specs into the Explosive Clap skill.
* ShoddyKnockoffProduct: Marcie stole Gaige's Deathtrap designs and entered it into the science fair as her own creation, the Crime-Buster Bot, which despite breaking down won first prize after her father paid off the judges. Gaige is understandably aggravated by this.
** In ''Borderlands 3'', robots based on Deathtrap's design appear throughout the game in various enemy and NPC roles. A hidden ECHO on Promethea explains that Mr. Holloway has taken Marcie's knockoff "Crime-Buster Bot" and expanded it to create a giant robotics company. His desire to have vengeance on Gaige for Marcie's death has not faded.
* SignificantGreenEyedRedhead: If you look closely, the mesh in her eyes, in her default skin, are actually green.
* SitcomArchNemesis: Her classmate, RichBitch and SpoiledBrat Marcie Holloway. [[ItsPersonal It gets personal]] after Gaige finds out that Marcie plagiarized her work, renamed it, and sold it to "the galaxy's most corrupt police force". By the Son of Crawmerax DLC, this has extended to the entire Holloway family and them hunting her down for accidentally killing Marcie is the reason why she doesn't show up in the main story of ''3''.
* TheSixthRanger: Unlike the rest of the five other Vault Hunters, who apparently meet up with each other before going in the Hyperion Train from the beginning, it appears she simply sneaks right in, according to the trailers, while being generally more damage-dependent than her teammates. Even Krieg was given a reason as to why he tagged along (he hitched a ride on the ''outside'' of the train).
* SkillGateCharacter: In general, Gaige is designed as the beginner-friendly character among the six Vault Hunters, particularly for those who casually play a FirstPersonShooter in single-player:
** With Deathtrap, the player has an A.I.-controlled ally that automatically targets the nearest enemy, and upgrading him through specific skills also gives him more utility and effects in a gunfight. Enemies are more likely to attack him, which gives Gaige players a way to distract enemy fire from themselves. Deathtrap can also automatically save the player from Fight for Your Life Mode if he nets any kill.
** Gaige has a versatility in all Elemental Damage except for Corrosive and Explosion with her middle skill tree, and she can shoot Deathtrap to apply specific elements to him.
** Her "Insterspersed Outburst" is a skill that can automatically Slag the target as well as deal bonus damage. Putting the skill's weird interaction with weapon-specific Badass Challenges aside, a free slagging ability is already a win situation when playing in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, since slagged enemies take even more damage from that difficulty.
** Her Ordered Chaos tree benefits greatly from the Anarchy mechanic - stacking status effects that give increased damage at the cost of accuracy. But the accuracy penalty can actually be resolved by combining Anarchy with "Close Enough" and "The Nth Degree". These skills guarantee that your bullets will at least ricochet to the field or towards the enemies even if you miss your initial shot. Anarchy Gaige players can easily scatter bullets from all sorts of directions and still expect targets to be damaged from all the ricochet and bouncing of projectiles.
** Her Best Friends Forever tree is designed to be less powerful than her other trees, but much more user-friendly with a lot of survivability options such as regenerating health when the magazine is full, letting missed bullets ricochet off walls and reducing Deathtrap's summon cooldown, making the skill tree good for new players who simply want to rush in a gunfight with less risk.
* SmallGirlBigGun: She's the shortest Vault Hunter in the game (and much thinner than Salvador), and yet can still use rocket launchers, shotguns and sniper rifles. Some sniper rifles are actually as long as she is tall.
* SmartPeopleBuildRobots: Deathtrap is a bronze medal science fair project. (Come to think of it, even if Marcie bribed the judges to get the gold, [[FridgeLogic what won the silver]]?)
* SpontaneousWeaponCreation: Digistructed Claws and Deathtrap.
* {{Squick}}: When scoring a crit kill, she may yell out, an in-universe example is when she gets slagged. She complains that she got some in her mouth and informs everyone that it smells like a mix of piss and nachos, but apparently subverted with this quote:
--> Gaige: "Egh. I got brains on my shoes. ''([[{{Beat}} sniff]])'' I like it."
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Gaige's cybernetic arm is strong enough to smash concrete. However it is not ''durable'' enough to smash concrete without mangling the fingers. While this obviously doesn't ''hurt'' Gaige, it's still inconvenient, hence the [[DropTheHammer hammer]].
* TakeThat: During "Mad Moxxi's Wedding Day Massacre", Gaige's method of making a baby cry is to mention that CountryMusic exists.
* TeenGenius: Eighteen years old and she initially designed Deathtrap as a ''science fair project''.
* ThreeLawsCompliant: Deathtrap isn't. Dialogue exists reflecting it:
-->"[[LampshadeHanging To hell with the first law!]]"
* TookALevelInBadass: Goes from bullied, not very popular nerd to [[OneManArmy Vault Hunter]].
* UnusualEuphemism: Has a bunch.
--> ''[On a Deathtrap kill]'' "Ooooh, right in the wingnut!"
* WhatTheHellPlayer: [[BreakingTheFourthWall Called out by Gaige herself]] upon enough Anarchy stacks.
-->'''Gaige:''' PLAYER! WHAT! ARE. YOU! ''DOING''!?
* WhateverMancy:
** She is known as the "Mechromancer" for her ability to "summon" her robot Deathtrap from out of nowhere with only a wave of her cybernetic hands like magic. Her cybernetic arm is actually some sort of portable digistructing device that she uses to conveniently digistruct Deathtrap wherever she goes.
** Her class mods from Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragons Keep are called Necromancer.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: [[RunningGag Once again]], based on her Anarchy stacks. From zero to roughly 100 stacks, she seems normal. From there to 150, she's clearly feeling the effects mentally and wants more, but nowhere near as bad as once she passes the 150 mark. By the time she hits 400 she's clearly [[PowerHigh gone off]] [[AGodAmI the deep end]]. She even lampshades it by yelling "I'm going mildly insane!!"
* WrenchWench: Her designs have elements of it.
* WolverineClaws:
** Her tier 6 Ordered Chaos skill, With Claws, overrides her default melee attack with digistructed claws while you have Anarchy stacked.
** Deathtrap's melee attacks also involve swiping and slashing with his sets of claws.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Some of her Second Wind quotes come off as being legitimately surprised that she pulled it off and didn't die as opposed to her usual handling of the situation.
* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Her reaction to finding out that Marcie stole her DT design, gave it to police, and gave it the stupid name of Crime Buster Bot.
-->'''Gaige:''' Bitch, are you kidding me!?
[[/folder]]

'''Individuals and groups''': [[Characters/BorderlandsDahl Dahl]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHyperion Hyperion]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]]) | [[Characters/BorderlandsTorgue Torgue]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsEridiansAndVaultMonsters Eridians and Vault Monsters]]\\

'''Individuals and groups''': [[Characters/BorderlandsHyperion Hyperion]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]]) | [[Characters/BorderlandsTorgue Torgue]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsEridiansAndVaultMonsters Eridians and Vault Monsters]]\\

'''Individuals and groups''': [[Characters/BorderlandsHyperion Hyperion]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]]) | [[Characters/BorderlandsEridiansAndVaultMonsters Eridians and Vault Monsters]]\\

'''Miscellaneous''': [[Characters/BorderlandsWeaponBrands Other Weapon Brands]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsBanditsAndBanditFactions Bandits and Bandit Factions]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsCreatures Creatures]]-]]]]]

'''Miscellaneous''': [[Characters/BorderlandsWeaponBrands Other Weapon Brands]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsCreatures Creatures]]-]]]]]

'''Individuals and groups''': [[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsEridiansAndVaultMonsters Eridians and Vault Monsters]]\\
'''Miscellaneous''': [[Characters/BorderlandsWeaponBrands Weapon Brands]] | [[Characters/BorderlandsCreatures Creatures]]-]]]]]

[[center:[-'''[[Characters/BorderlandsVaultHunters Playable Characters]]'''-]]]
[[center: [-[[Characters/Borderlands1VaultHunters Borderlands Vault Hunters]] | '''Borderlands 2 Vault Hunters''' | [[Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequelVaultHunters The Pre-Sequel Vault Hunters]] ([[Characters/BorderlandsClaptrap Claptrap]]) | [[Characters/Borderlands3VaultHunters Borderlands 3 Vault Hunters]]-]]]

[[center:[-'''Supporting Characters'''-]]]
[[center:[-[[Characters/Borderlands1 Borderlands]] | Characters/Borderlands2 ([[Characters/BorderlandsHandsomeJack Handsome Jack]]) | Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequel | Characters/Borderlands3 | Characters/TalesFromTheBorderlands | [[Characters/BorderlandsOtherCharacters Other Media]]-]]]

[[center:[-'''Miscellaneous'''-]]]
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* TheFellowshipHasEnded: As of ''Borderlands 3'', this tight-nit group seems to not be as tight-nit anymore, with many of them away and isolated from one another, most not even joining the conflict with the Calypsos barring [=Zer0=] and Maya. Even then, [=Zer0=] and Maya don't interact. The rest don't get a passing mention by those on Sanctuary either despite their reputation and previously tight bond, even after [[spoiler: their friend and former leader, Maya, has been killed]]. Originally it seemed as if this was the result of the Raiders scattering to rebuilt at the end of Commander Lilith, though Fantastic Fustercluck all but states it happened much more recently then that.

* OutOfFocus: Since ''2'', the Vault Hunters have had no significant role to play in the main plotlines of later games. ([[SilentProtagonist even in their own game they never spoke to other characters or commented on current events]] outside of their own [=ECHOs=] and three [=DLCs=].) Although Maya and [=Zer0=] appear in ''3'', their screen time is rather minimal. [[spoiler: Not even when Maya dies and [=Zer0=] stays aboard Sanctuary 3 for the rest of the game does he play a further role, nor do the others get involved in the story.]]

* SuperiorSuccessor: [[spoiler: Angel]] believes that they're this to the original Vault Hunters, fully confident that they would succeed where their predecessors started/failed and defeat Jack.
* TrueCompanions: {{Zigzagged|Trope}}. On one hand, the end of Tiny Tina's DLC seems to push this at the end, all gathering together to pay respects to [[spoiler: Roland and Bloodwing]] in a silent moment of unity and the headhunters DLC have them doing more casual things together such as choosing to go on vacation and celebrate holiday events together. On the other hand, ''3'' heavily leans towards TheFriendsWhoNeverHang, seeing how [=Zer0=] and Maya don't talk to each other during the time the two are in the story (With only [=Zer0=] mentioning her), and Krieg's DLC focuses more on how Lilith, Mordecai and Brick view him than any of his group barring Maya.

* ISurrenderSuckers: [[spoiler:You can find [=ECHO=] logs of him being tortured by bandits he was sent to capture. The bandits reveal that they are aware of their own bounties, and that they believe Axton has been paid upfront for their capture. Perhaps part of his plan all along, Axton "admits" that he has the payment in a small storage deck in his pack, and all the bandits have to do to retrieve it is throw the deck on the ground. It turns out that the storage deck was his Sabre Turret. True to form, he grumps "That was too easy," as the turret mops the floor with the bandits.]]

* MirrorCharacter: He has a disturbingly large amount of traits in common with ''[[BigBad Handsome Jack himself]]'', most notably [[HeroicWannabe thinking that he's the hero of the story]] [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality and treating that as a license to do whatever the hell he pleases.]] They've also both had the women in their lives leave them because of something they did (Sarah divorced Axton after he killed a dignitary he was supposed to be escorting, while Jack's second wife left him after [[spoiler: she found out about Angel]]), and both of them [[TheTurretMaster use turrets]], right down to shouting "Stand in front of this!" when deploying them. When he gets Handsome Jack's voice, he even makes ''exactly'' the kind of mean-spirited joke Jack likes to make at the Vault Hunters' expense.

* WhatTheHellHero: Delivered by his ex-wife, Sarah, when recounting Axton's brilliant plan to escort a dignitary... [[spoiler:by planting a tracker on him, following it when he got captured, and blowing up the building full of terrorists. ''With the dignitary still inside.'']] Nonetheless, in the Son of Crawmerax DLC [[spoiler:Sarah took out the assassin coming after him as a favor.]]

* {{Asexual}}: [[WordOfGod An interview says she's asexual]], but she's likely not aromantic. In-game she was implied to be in a relationship with Brother Sophis [[spoiler:until she shot him for manipulating her.]] Keep in mind that, as Brother Sophis also [[ParentalIncest raised her]], how much choice she had in the matter is questionable. She shares her fellow Vault Hunters' opinion that Innuendobot's [[WhatIsThisFeeling conflicted feelings of love for his creator/mother Moxxi]] were weird, but she's the only one sounds amused and not grossed out about it. Yes, this includes ''[[TalkativeLoon Krieg]]''.

* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler: Maya is introduced fairly early into the story of ''Borderlands 3'', and takes a fairly active role in it. She then dies only a few missions afterwards.]]

** Her class mods appear as hardcover books. Also in the third game, [[spoiler:A book is what was left of Maya after she was ReducedToDust by Troy]].
** In the Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep DLC the characters ponder on what they will spend their riches on. Maya's response:

* BerserkButton: Do not call her a child. [[spoiler:Ask [[SinisterMinister Brother Sophis]] - oh wait, [[BoomHeadshot Maya blew a hole in his head]]. Never mind!]]

* ChickMagnet: A female example. Ellie flirts with her by default like the other Vault Hunters, while Moxxi, Tina and [[spoiler: Tannis (most likely through a note)]] have shown attraction to her specifically.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler: She's ReducedToDust by Troy in ''3'', screaming in pain and terror as she disintegrates]].

* GoneHorriblyRight: The church that raised and trained her repeatedly insisted that she was going to be used to fight terrorists and criminals. [[spoiler:[[HoistByHisOwnPetard When she found out they were using her to keep the planet in terror to obey them, she used her Siren powers to kill them.]]]]

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Jack put a bounty of $720 billion on her head, the second-highest of the Vault Hunters (compared to Axton's 5 for war crimes, [=Zer0=]'s 32 for political assassination, Salvador's 99 for at least eight varied offenses, and Gaige's 820 for her Deathtrap "exploding" her RichBitch classmate), simply for being a Siren [[spoiler:not under his thumb, unlike Angel]].

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: ''Borderlands 3'' reveals she was one for Krieg, as she was the first to treat him as a friend and not just another psycho, and then treated him as a trusted friend thereafter. Krieg also developed strong feelings for her but could never express them properly due to his state of mind. [[spoiler:After her death, Krieg started to have a relapse and began to fear losing his memories of her.]]

* PsychicPowers: While Lilith's powers are associated with fire and dimensional travel, [[spoiler:and Angel's powers are associated with [[{{Technopath}} Technopathy]]]], Maya's abilities resemble classic Psychic Powers. Her phaselock is telekinetic in nature, the ultimate skill of her Motion skill tree lets her mind-control enemies, and ''Borderlands 3'' seems to imply she's developed a degree of precognition as well.

** [[spoiler:Some of the church members who were less abusive were also allowed to live and are implied to have aided in her getting to Pandora.]]

* ReducedToDust: In ''Borderlands 3'', [[spoiler:Troy Calypso drains both her powers and life, causing her body to crumble.]]

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: And her hair is really colored blue. Well, on her default skin. Her character skins vary from realistic hair colors to various dye jobs. But [[spoiler: if the Maya in Krieg's mind is to be believed]], she actually uses hair dye. And a lot of it.
-->'''Maya''': There are actually some super great perks to... [[spoiler: [[MentalWorld whatever this is.]]]] I look like this FOREVER. Do you have any idea how much I was spending on hair dye?

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Has the third-highest bounty of all the Vault Hunters, with a list of crimes including manslaughter, arson, and cannibalism... and yet, he still loves his grandma Rosita. In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, [[spoiler:upon learning that she hired the resort staff to kill his assassin, he happily declares "I love you, abuela!"]]

* BackForTheFinale: [[spoiler:He can be recruited for the finale of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'' if either A) Fiona told Mordecai she was a Vault Hunter, or B) The only other two available are Athena and August.]]

* ChallengeSeeker: His primary motivation above all else is to seek a challenge for his skills. [[spoiler:In the finale of ''Tales from the Borderlands'', he’s the only Vault Hunter that doesn't need to be hired, provided that he learns of Fiona's reputation.]]

* CorporateSamurai: As of ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'', [[spoiler:[=Zer0=] is now working as an Atlas operative under its new CEO Rhys]].

* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler:In ''Tales from the Borderlands'', he seems to get crushed by the death race announcer's box with Bossanova, but then reappears, revealing that he was using a {{Hologram}}.]]

* GratuitousIambicPentameter: Pretty much anything he says beyond short, curt sentences is in the form of a 5/7/5 syllabic haiku. Not even [[spoiler:Angel]] is sure why he does so.

** In ''3'', precisely how [[spoiler: Katagawa Jr. got weapons and equipment to match [=Zer0's=] abilities]] is not specified, but it does seem to perturb him. In a random line after the boss fight, he'll make a cryptic reference to a female who may have been the source of the armor and sword and holographic technology, but [=Zer0=] will cut himself off before explaining any further.

** NotSoStoic: In ''Borderlands 3'', [[spoiler: he expresses genuine grief and mourns Maya after she is killed off by Troy]].

* AdultFear: When he befriended Maya, he made their relationship his only support system for his mental illness. [[spoiler: After she dies in ''3'', Krieg starts having a relapse and begins to fear losing his memories of her.]]

* AmnesiacHero: Inner Krieg doesn't remember anything from his past, and [[AxCrazy outer Krieg]] [[EvilFeelsGood doesn't want to]]. By the end of "Fantastic Fustercluck" [[spoiler:he never fully regains his memories of who he was, but he accepts it and chooses to build a new future. It's also revealed earlier on that it is less that Psycho Krieg doesn't want to, and more that he knows the memories have completely disappeared from their mind, which he actually sounds saddened by when it is finally revealed to Sane Krieg]].

** The "Fantastic Fustercluck" DLC shows that [[spoiler:the Psycho personality itself is a manifestation of Krieg's own will to survive and protect what is left of his shattered psyche after Benedict's experiments, and it's hostility to everyone is its desire to [[NeverBeHurtAgain protect Krieg from anyone who would ever hurt him]]. Without it he would have succumbed to despair and just waited for his death]].

* IntelligibleUnintelligible: [[spoiler: As revealed in ''Flustercluck'', Maya can understand Krieg as far back as their first conversation, making him this trope. Even though Krieg says a completely random sentence, Maya is able to decipher that fighting to survive is all he knows and respond accordingly that survival isn't all that matters.]]

* IWillWaitForYou: [[spoiler:According to a series of ECHO Logs in ''3'', Krieg has been spending the last few years waiting for Maya to return to Pandora as well as struggling to regain control over his body. Sadly, Maya's death dashes Krieg's hopes for a reunion, and part of the main storyline of the ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC involves protecting his memory of Maya from his own insanity so that he doesn't lose what he has left of her]].

** In his mind, his personalities are represented by two beings, [[RedOniBlueOni Sane Krieg and Psycho Krieg]]. Psycho Krieg is red and angry, while Sane Krieg is blue and calm. [[spoiler: Psycho Krieg is the response to Pandora, he wants to protect himself by pushing others away and isolating himself.]]

** Krieg is implied to be regaining his sanity by his inner voice/consciences gaining more influence over him as the game goes on. Although his quotes don't reflect it, as he continues his insane raving throughout the game, his involvement in helping fight Handsome Jack and (optionally) taking side quests to help others certainly indicates he's in it for more than killing. Silence The Voices is stated to be his psycho side's attempt to stifle his inner voice. As of the end of the Tiny Tina DLC he is calm and collected with the other Vault Hunters, [[spoiler:and he is seen mournfully sitting at Roland's funeral, indicating a respect for Roland and the others.]]

** In ''Borderlands 3'', there's an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGVGc5uydFA ECHO recording]] of Krieg talking to Maya about [[spoiler: the fact Sanctuary has been destroyed and Maya has to leave for Athenas. He's actually holding up his end of the conversation, more or less--even his shouting about poop and knives is pretty clearly about his feelings. Another series of ECHO Logs shows that Krieg's sane side is now capable of gaining control temporarily and speaking aloud after years of work. At the end of the ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC, Krieg's Sane and Psycho sides are able to come to an understanding and agree to make the best of their shared existence together, with Sane Krieg stating that while Psychoreaver will never get weaker they are now strong enough to properly fight back]].

* SplitPersonalityMerge: [[spoiler:At the end of the ''Fantastic Fustercluck'' DLC, after the defeat of Psychoreaver (the manifestation of the insanity of Psychos) Krieg's Sane and Psycho half seemingly combine in order to make something new of himself]].

** In "Guns, Love, and Tentacles," Deathtrap doesn't display any extra personality, but Gaige is clearly ''very'' dependent on him emotionally. She says more than once that he's been her only companion for the seven years she's been on the run. [[spoiler:When he seemingly dies, she has a breakdown, even though there's no reason she couldn't just build a new one. Thankfully, he CameBackStrong]].

* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler:Deathtrap suffers one of these in the ''Guns, Love, and Tentacles'' story, having installed an eltrich crystal into itself and being overloaded with its power. It's knocked out for a while, but unlike Bloodwing, it [[CameBackStrong comes back strong]] with a new deadly laser attack]].

* EyeBeam: Deathtrap has a shock-element energy beam in his eye that he uses for long-range targets, and The Stare also gives him the ability to fire a burning beam that can ignite enemies. [[spoiler: After his eye gets upgraded with a piece of Gythian's heart, Deathtrap's laser becomes powerful enough to make enemies outright explode when shot.]]

* IncompatibleOrientation: She expresses a crush on Sir Hammerlock in the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, noting that she'll be all over him if he ever becomes straight. This crush is mentioned again a couple times during the Son of Crawmerax DLC, turning into PerverseSexualLust judging by how aggressively she comments about it. She seems to have gotten over it by the time she returns in ''Borderlands 3'', as it has been seven years and she has grown up. She's even the wedding planner for Hammerlock and Jakobs, being completely supportive of their relationship.

* LikesOlderMen: While the Borderlands series has a dearth of males of high-school-age for comparison anyway, Gaige give a flirty compliment to the late twenties Axton in the Holodrome DLC of ''The Pre-Sequel!'', considered the idea of speaking with the voice of an older man being hot [[spoiler:if it wasn't Handsome Jack]], seems to especially have a thing for the graying Sir Hammerlock, and in ''Guns, Love, and Tentacles'' asks the Vault Hunter to put in a good word for her to Eista who appears to be in his thirties.

--> '''Gaige:''' [[spoiler:Man, this whole "Speaking with the voice of an older man" thing is nowhere near as hot as I thought it would be.]]

** He once again assists her in the Son of Crawmerax DLC. [[spoiler:He was the one who sabotaged the ship Marcie's uncle used to try getting to Pandora, killing him.]]

[[center: [-[[Characters/Borderlands1VaultHunters Borderlands Vault Hunters]] | '''Borderlands 2 Vault Hunters''' | [[Characters/BorderlandsThePreSequelVaultHunters The Pre-Sequel Vault Hunters]] | [[Characters/Borderlands3VaultHunters Borderlands 3 Vault Hunters]]-]]]

** Some of his lines seem to openly invite enemies to injure him, particularly ones involved with "Salt the Wound".

* OneWingedAngel: His final Mania talent turns him into a Badass Psycho if he uses his action skill at 33% health or less.

* NotSoDifferent: He has a disturbingly large amount of traits in common with ''[[BigBad Handsome Jack himself]]'', most notably [[HeroicWannabe thinking that he's the hero of the story]] [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality and treating that as a license to do whatever the hell he pleases.]] They've also both had the women in their lives leave them because of something they did (Sarah divorced Axton after he killed a dignitary he was supposed to be escorting, while Jack's second wife left him after [[spoiler: she found out about Angel]]), and both of them [[TheTurretMaster use turrets]], right down to shouting "Stand in front of this!" when deploying them. When he gets Handsome Jack's voice, he even makes ''exactly'' the kind of mean-spirited joke Jack likes to make at the Vault Hunters' expense.
-->""I'm Handsome Jack! Commando, don't kill me! I'm so sorry!" Pow! [[ButHeSoundsHandsome "Augh, oh no, you're so much cooler than me, Commando..."]]"

--->For the folks askin,the chevrons on my head are Dahl implants denoting rank. They hurt lots when it's cold. Or warm. Or when I turn my head.\\

* TheFellowshipHasEnded: As of ''Borderlands 3'', this tight-nit group seems to not be as tight-nit any more, with many of them away and isolated from one another, most not even joining the conflict with the Calypsos barring [=Zer0=] and Maya. Even then, [=Zer0=] and Maya don't interact. The rest don't get a passing mention by those on Sanctuary either despite their reputation and previously tight bond, even after [[spoiler: their friend and former leader, Maya, has been killed]]. Originally it seemed as if this was the result of the Raiders scattering to rebuilt at the end of Commander Lilith, though Fantastic Fustercluck all but states it happened much more recently then that.

* OutOfFocus: Since ''2'', the Vault Hunters have had no significant role to play in the main plot lines of later games. ([[SilentProtagonist even in their own game they never spoke to other characters or commented on current events]] outside of their own [=ECHOs=] and three [=DLCs=].) Although Maya and [=Zer0=] appear in ''3'', their screen time is rather minimal. [[spoiler: Not even when Maya dies and [=Zer0=] stays aboard Sanctuary 3 for the rest of the game does he play a further role, nor do the others get involved in the story.]]

* TrueCompanions: Zigzagged. On one hand, the end of Tiny Tina's DLC seems to push this at the end, all gathering together to pay respects to [[spoiler: Roland and Bloodwing]] in a silent moment of unity and the headhunters DLC have them doing more casual things together such as choosing to go on vacation and celebrate holiday events together. On the other hand, ''3'' heavily leans towards TheFriendsWhoNeverHang, seeing how [=Zer0=] and Maya don't talk to each other during the time the two are in the story (With only [=Zer0=] mentioning her), and Krieg's DLC focuses more on how Lilith, Mordecai and Brick view him than any of his group barring Maya.

A Siren who once served as the secret weapon of an order of monks known as the Order of the Impending Storm who ruled over the planet Athenas. After learning of the monks' corruption and their plans to use her as a enforcer to keep the people of Athenas in line, she abandoned the order to seek out answers regarding her Siren lineage on Pandora. Her skill is Phaselock, letting her trap, damage, or control enemies, and her skill trees are oriented towards enhancing her fighting skills through Phaselock ('''Motion'''), making her a better healer ('''Harmony'''), and applying and leveraging elemental damage ('''Cataclysm''').

* {{Asexual}}: An interview says she's asexual, but she's likely not aromantic. In-game she was implied to be in a relationship with Brother Sophis [[spoiler:until she shot him for manipulating her.]] Keep in mind that, as Brother Sophis also [[ParentalIncest raised her]], how much choice she had in the matter is questionable.
** She shares her fellow Vault Hunters' opinion that Innuendobot's [[WhatIsThisFeeling conflicted feelings of love for his creator/mother Moxxi]] were weird, but she's the only one sounds amused and not grossed out about it. Yes, this includes ''[[TalkativeLoon Krieg]]''.

--->"Lots and lots of books...and guns."

* BattleCouple: An odd case with Krieg. ''Borderlands 3'' (particularly the Fantastic Fustercluck DLC) shows that she did in-fact care deeply for him in her own way. In effect, they make the absolute best example of SwordAndSorcerer[=/=]GuysSmashGirlsShoot in the entire second game's multiplayer portion. Maya is able to crowd control enemies and allow Krieg to utterly obliterate them in melee, as well as Maya being able to heal Krieg in combat. Their instant-revive skills synergise marvellously, as Krieg can sacrifice himself to get her back up, but Maya can then instantly revive him as well.

* CombatAndSupport: Like Roland before her, she's TheMedic and has multiple skills dedicated to healing and supporting allies, but is somewhat less suited for solo play compared to other characters due to her action skill's lack of crowd control or threat evasion.

* ElementalPowers: The Cataclysm tree emphasizes on dealing various elemental, damage-over-time abilities, mostly [[PlayingWithFire Fire/Burn]] damage.
* EnergyBall: The capstone of her Harmony tree, "Scorn", fires a ball of slag that that damages everything near it.

* HealingShiv: Like Roland's Cauterize from the first game, her Restoration ability allows you to heal your allies... by shooting them. Her Rez override also turns her action skill into an insta-revive.
** As a sidenote, Restoration means your shots will even heal a Krieg who specced into Fuel the Rampage (which enables him to take friendly fire) -- the healing seems to actually be painful to him, as he responds as if hurt.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Jack put a bounty of $720 billion on her head, the second highest of the Vault Hunters (compared to Axton's 5 for war crimes, [=Zer0=]'s 32 for political assassination, Salvador's 99 for at least eight varied offenses, and Gaige's 820 for her Deathtrap "exploding" her RichBitch classmate), simply for being a Siren [[spoiler:not under his thumb, unlike Angel]].

--->"Someone once said, [[VengeanceFeelsEmpty he who sets out on revenge should dig two graves]]. [[SophisticatedAsHell That's a stupid-ass quote]], revenge is awesome."

* PostMortemOneLiner: After Phaselocking and executing Brother Sophis (with bonus PunctuatedForEmphasis:
-->"Don't. Call me. CHILD."

* SensualSpandex: Her tight fitting top prominently shows off her figure.

* ShipTease: With Krieg. Admittedly it seems pretty one-sided, since Krieg communicates exclusively in meat-related nonsense and enormous amounts of violence. In a Loverpalooza letter between Moxxi and Krieg, the latter implies that Maya either turned him down or isn't aware of his feelings for her.

* TokenGoodTeammate: Despite her fondness for a hearty EvilLaugh when dispatching foes, calling opponents 'bitches,' and her tendency to tell opponents they should just give up and die, Maya is by far the least psychotic and bloodthirsty of the Vault Hunters.

* TheBerserker: ''Gun''zerker, to be more specific.

* ChasteHero: Oddly enough, Anthony Burch actually stated that Salvador isn't interested in the, uh... "usual" hero's reward, being more interested in guns. In the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, if asked by Moxxi if he ever had someone who loved him, he has this to say:

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Has the third highest bounty of all the Vault Hunters, with a list of crimes including manslaughter, arson, and cannibalism... and yet, he still loves his grandma Rosita. In the Son of Crawmerax DLC, [[spoiler:upon learning that she hired the resort staff to kill his assassin, he happily declares "I love you, abuela!"]]

* FlippingTheBird: Does this with his Come At Me, Bro skill. Sadly, it's first person only and no third person animations exist for it.

-->"Guns! And guns!"

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Jack's [=ECHO=] recordings of Salvador has him about to be hanged for killing four men. According to Salvador, said men were bandits who were trying to kill his grandmother. He already tried to convince his fellow villagers of this, and considering their calls for his death, to no avail .

-->"With Hunter Hellquist dead, people aren't at risk of thinking you're a terrible, scary, baby-eating monster. Unless you're the Gunzerker. He still makes people uncomfortable.”

* HealingFactor: The Brawn skill tree has a number of skills that effect this in various ways, either passively, or while Gunzerking.

-->'''''"BRING THE PAIN, BITCHES!"'''''

--> '''Sparky Flint''': The next guy you're looking for is named Blendo, and he wants to kill Salvador in order to avenge, uh... ''(long pause)''... everyone. You killed his entire bandit clan, Sally. All a hundred and fifty of them.
--> '''Salvador''': That was a ''fuuuunn'' weekend.

* UnstoppableRage: What Gunzerking is. The screen gets a red tint around the edges and you can see the bloodshot veins in Salvador's eyes for the duration. In an interesting twist on the standard form of the trope, the rage of the gunzerker involves becoming a walking dispenser of [[BulletHell danmaku]], rather than executing ExtremeMeleeRevenge.

->'''Voiced by:''' Mike Turner

* AmbiguousGender: [=Zer0=] is assumed to be male, but his true gender is officially unknown. [[https://imgur.com/WqhuuK7 The "Pandoran Gazette"]] and [[https://twitter.com/GearboxOfficial/status/355350130775453696 an invitation from Tiny Tina point to his gender ambiguity]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ1DVjHMvQY&feature=youtu.be&t=389 At PAX 2014, Randy Pitchford referred to [=Zer0=]'s gender as "ambiguous"]]. [=Zer0=] is the only Vault Hunter in [=BL2=] to have a male and female voice actor. Mike Turner voices him in [=BL2=] and [=BL3=], and is credited as voicing him in "Tales" despite having a consistently higher pitched voice throughout, but Ashley Burch voices him in ''Tales From the Borderlands'', episode 5, and the "Wimoweh" trailer.

* CelibateHero: In the Wedding Day Massacre DLC, when Moxxi asked him if he ever had someone he loved, his reply is that he’s in love with combat and the battlefield and don't need anyone.
** But then by [=BL3=] he seems to have developed an actual crush on Lorelei even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCj78mpAaE messing up one of his haikus]] while talking to her! Quite possibly because Lorelei was [[InLoveWithYourCarnage violently wiping the floor with Maliwan troops and enjoying every second of it beforehand.]]

* CompetitiveBalance: While the Sniping and Bloodshed trees overspecialize boosting ranged and melee attacks respectively, the Cunning tree is more of a balanced specialization that benefit both ranged and melee combat.

* CorporateSamurai: As of ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'', [[spoiler:[=Zer0=] is now working as an Atlas operative under it's new CEO Rhys]].

* DashAttack: His "Execute" skill allows him to lunge at his enemies during [=Decepti0n=] mode. With the end-tier skill of his Bloodshed tree, "Many Must Fall", he can chain these indefinitely as Deception will remain active and the timer will be reset as long as he manage to kill his target.

* {{Emoticon}}: [=Zer0=] doesn't have facial expressions, so his helmet faceplate lights up to show his emotions, such as ''':)''' when he kills or '''<3''' when he's picking someone up. When he lose a duel, "'''FML'''" (Fuck My Life) shows up on his face. Climbing or teleporting behind the wheel of a vehicle nets a "''':D'''", which is about as emotional as he gets.

* NotSoAboveItAll: In the final chapter of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'', after being reunited with Sasha, Rhys opens his arms expecting her to run up and hug him, only for her to run past to hug Vaughn instead. If you recruited [=Zer0=] to help you out, he will call out Rhys on such an embarrassing display.

** Whenever he drops his poetic warrior attitude to fill his haiku poems with profanity and bragging, usually at his targets expense. A good example is when he challenges a teammate to a duel (See SophisticatedAsHell below).

* SkullForAHead: His head customization from Tiny Tina's DLC is the same as the head of the four Skeleton King bosses. Averted with his head from Captain Scarlett's DLC, which is just a skull painted over the front of his default helmet (and he also wears a do-rag).
** Played with when you wear the head from ''Wedding Day Massacre'', in which he's the only one who doesn't get an organic and exposed skull for a head. He instead gets his helmet removed and a robotic eye in its place, with it named [[='N0t C4n0n'=]] so as not to solve the mystery of his ambiguous species.

-->'''[=Zer0=]:''' ''(issuing a duel challenge)'' Oh, what?! Yeah, what, bitch?! / Yeah, I just slapped you and stuff. / What you gonna do?

--> We made them angry. / Prepare for counter-attack. / Maliwan dickheads.
--> (After the player has killed Katagawa)'' Katagawa is dead./ That kill was long overdue. / What a goddamn douche.

* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: [[ShownTheirWork In psychology, alliteration without logical association is often indicative of clanging, a symptom of schizophrenia]]. Or he's seen ''Film/VForVendetta'' at some point. Unsurprisingly, Krieg is quite fond of this:

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Krieg's "I WANNA BE WANTED" head has him wearing a Wanted poster of himself over his face, with a charge written at the bottom for "Indecent Exposure".

* CombatSadomasochist: Some of his lines seem to openly invite enemies to injure him, particularly ones involved with "Salt the Wound". He also seems to really like being set on fire (his sane personality, not so much).

** A rabid, raving, 'roid-raging, ramblin' rancher who drinks blood and chops people into stew meat, mostly played for ([[BlackComedy dark]]) laughs when it doesn't dip into SurpriseCreepy. While not completely divorced from reality (at least lucid enough that we can take quests and dialouge at face value), he's still a giggling axe murderer with a good half that keeps him pointed at the (other, worse) bad guys.
** Downplayed in "The Fantastic Fustercluck". Traces of this are still present as you interact with the personafications of both sane and insane Krieg who bicker about inane topics, but the [=DLC=] also treats it in a much more serious manner by revealing just how much Krieg loathes himself.

* HeroicWillpower: The original personality is able to exert some level of control over the dominant personality's actions...sometimes. [[WordOfGod Gearbox reps]] compare said personality to a driver of a huge truck with its brakes cut careening through a town. He can't stop it or slow it, but he can at least steer away from the innocent - and if a jerk or two winds up wrapped around his bumper, he's not weeping.
** The "Fantastic Fustercluck" DLC shows that [[spoiler:the Psycho personality itself is a manifestation of Krieg's own will to survive and protect what is left of his shattered psyche after Benedict's experiments, and it's hostility to everyone is it's desire to [[NeverBeHurtAgain protect Krieg from anyone who would ever hurt him]]. Without it he would have succumbed to despair and just waited for his death]].

* IAmAMonster: What his inner voice constantly thinks of him. Also one of the quotes upon activating Release the Beast. A couple of his quotes have Krieg trying to shout down his inner voice and declare that he is a monster, and ''he loves it''. One even says it word for word:

** Another wonderful combination is Mania/Hellborn with "Flame of the Firehawk". Flame of the Firehawk is a nova shield, a shield class that releases an elemental blast with a wide range when depleted, that KEEPS BLASTING until it recharges. Krieg's skills and the constant self immolation mean that if the shield is recharging, there is likely nothing left to kill.

* MoodWhiplash: Sometimes his quotes are SurrealHumor...

* MoreDakka: Elemental Elation has it so that Krieg gains an increasing stack of buffs to his fire rate and magazine size anytime he deals elemental damage. Paired with Blood Filled Guns (which increases his magazine size based on his Bloodlust stacks), he can supply some impressive Dakka. Embrace the Pain increases fire rate as long as shields are down; it and Feed the Meet both increase shield recharge delay, meaning you keep the buff for longer.

--> ''(when motivating Ed to break open the doors)'' "SHE'S WAITING TO SUCKLE AT THE TEAT OF [[RescueRomance EXPLOSION CHIVALRY!"]]
-->''(when asked by Innuendobot if his odiepal feelings for Moxxi are normal)'' [[HeroicSelfDeprecation "DON'T ASK ME TO SHOW YOU NORMAL!"]]

* ShipTease: With Maya in his backstory video. His inner voice finds Maya very attractive, and his outer voice refers to her as "PRETTY LADY".
** Tiny Tina's "invite" to Maya for her [[MagicAmpersand Bunkers & Badasses]] game mentions Krieg staring at Maya a whole lot.

* ThemeNaming: All but one of the skills in the Bloodlust tree have "Blood" in their names, all but one of the skills in the Mania tree follow a "[Verb] the [Noun]" pattern, and all the skills in the Hellborn tree are alliterative. There's also one skill each in Bloodlust and Hellborn that conform to the Mania tree's theme.

-->"Ha! SUCK IT, Holloway family! Even if your hitman hadn't fallen outta the sky for some weirdass reason, I woulda taken him out anyway. '''I killed Handsome friggin' JACK!''' You think one little assassin can take me down? BOOYAH. Also, sorry I killed your daughter."

* LikesOlderMen: While the Borderlands series has a dearth of males of high-school age for comparison anyway, Gaige give a flirty compliment to the late twenties Axton in the Holodrome DLC of ''The Pre-Sequel!'', considered the idea of speaking with the voice of an older man being hot [[spoiler:if it wasn't Handsome Jack]], seems to especially have a thing for the graying Sir Hammerlock, and in ''Guns, Love, and Tentacles'' asks the Vault Hunter to put in a good word for her to Eista who appears to be in his thirties.
* LovableSexManiac: The most flirty out of all the characters, especially illustrated by one of her idle quotes. However, it seems that she only has eyes for [[StraightGay Hammerlock]]. Though in the Holodrome DLC for ''The Pre-Sequel!'' she calls Axton an "unparallelled stud". Whether or not this is genuine attraction on her part or Gaige just being nice isn't elaborated on.

* TheOtherDarrin: Invoked and paired with TheOtherMarty. Was originally supposed to be voiced by Creator/LuciChristian, and is even listed in the credits as such, but switched to Creator/CheramiLeigh in the middle of production. A lot of (possibly ''most'' of) Gaige's lines are still recognizably Luci; if you don't spec into Anarchy or Close Enough, you'll pretty much never hear Cherami at all.

** One of her skills in this tree - Shock and "AAAGGGGHHH!" - is a bit of word play on this trope.

** Her Best Friends Forever tree is designed to be less powerful than her other trees, but much more user-friendly with a lot of survivability options such as regenerating health when the magazine is full, letting missed bullets richocet off walls and reducing Deathtrap's summon cooldown, making the skill tree good for new players who simply want to rush in a gunfight with less risk.

--> ''(On a Deathtrap kill)'' "Ooooh, right in the wingnut!"

* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: [[RunningGag Once again]], based on her Anarchy stacks. From zero to roughly 100 stacks, she seems normal. From there to 150, she's clearly feeling the effects mentally and wants more, but no where near as bad as once she passes the 150 mark. By the time she hits 400 she's clearly [[PowerHigh gone off]] [[AGodAmI the deep end]]. She even lampshades it by yelling "I'm going mildly insane!!"

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: A more glaring example than the other Vault Hunter teams, as this group is an especially diverse lot. In this band, there's an ex-military commando with a CompanionCube level of affection for his sentry gun, a BadassBookworm telekinetic woman who's just as interested in educating herself as she is in melting enemies alive, an excessively mysterious cyber-ninja who speaks in poetic haiku while blasting heads off, a diminutive Pandoran native with some serious roid rage and an obsessive love for guns, a girly high schooler on the run from the law whose best friend is a giant deadly robot, and a literal AxCrazy and split-personality suffering maniac who's only just barely able to direct his rage to acceptable targets while seeking revenge for those responsible for his condition.

* CargoShip: In-universe, he loves his turret as much or more than his ex-wife, to the point he actually calls her "honey", "darlin'", etc. and sometimes refers to her as his girlfriend, or "the missus".

* ISurrenderSuckers: [[spoiler:You can find [=ECHO=] logs of him being tortured by bandits he was sent to capture. The bandits reveal that they are aware of their own bounties, and that they believe Axton has been paid up front for their capture. Perhaps part of his plan all along, Axton "admits" that he has the payment in a small storage deck in his pack, and all the bandits have to do to retrieve it is throw the deck on the ground. It turns out that storage deck was his Sabre Turret. True to form, he grumps "That was too easy," as the turret mops the floor with the bandits.]]

--> This thing workin'? Gaige told me people were writing fan fiction about me. Asked her to sign me up. Haven't found any yet, though.
--> echonet search axton + ellie fanfic

* MacrossMissileMassacre: The Guerrilla skill tree has an ability called "Scorched Earth" which causes his turret to fire 22 missiles in a volleys. When combined with the "Gemini" skill, Axton can deploy two turrets equipped with missiles.
* MilitaryMaverick: Said attitude got him ''kicked out'' of the military. He now merely works as a gun for hire. That said, he claims to have around ten years of military experience -- either his glory hound ways are a relatively new development or he spent a ''lot'' of time whittling away at his superiors' good will.

* SkillGateCharacter: Axton has an easy to use Action Skill in the same vein as Mordecai's, with his turret providing easy damage at range, and his specialty in increasing grenade damage pairs wonderfully with Torgue guns. After Normal difficulty, however, the turret drops off in power and becomes much easier for enemies to destroy, and the importance of elemental damage on higher difficulties makes most Torgue guns useless, while Axton's over-emphasis on the turret and lack of bonuses to his own damage output causes him to fall behind all of the other characters.

---> For the folks askin,the chevrons on my head are Dahl implants denoting rank. They hurt lots when it's cold. Or warm. Or when I turn my head.
---> I'd remove em, but Zed's the only one with the equipment to do it. He'd probly give me a mild case of decapitation in the process.
---> Yes, I (technically) got to 1st base with my turret when it magnetized and attached to the chevrons on my forehead. It was unpleasant. Ish.

* ArtificialLimbs: Well, Limb, singular. She accidentally sliced her left arm - she says it's "[[{{Understatement}} not a big cut]], it barely goes like, halfway to the bone" - which gave her a great idea. Instead of using an Insta-Health injection to fix the wound, she proceeds to ''[[CrazyAwesome finish lopping it off]]'' with a particle saw and builds a new one, which contains all of Deathtrap's digistruct data so she can quick-summon him wherever she is and whenever she wants. It can also punch through concrete, though doing so breaks its fingers off, which explains why she opts to use a hammer as a quick melee weapon instead of punching through enemies.

* SmartPeopleBuildRobots: Deathtrap is a bronze medal science fair project.

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